Colombo: The prime minister’s office confirmed on Monday that Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has notified Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that he will step down as originally indicated.
Prior to thousands of demonstrators storming the president’s official house on Wednesday, the speaker of the parliament announced Rajapaksa will step down.
South Africa: At least 14 people were killed and nine more injured in a shooting at a bar in the South African township of Soweto on Sunday, local authorities said.
The incident unfolded shortly after midnight, when a group of men armed with rifles and 9-millimeter pistols entered the bar in the Nomzamo informal settlement near Johannesburg and started shooting “randomly” at the patrons, Gauteng Police said in a statement.
Police said 23 people were shot in the establishment — 12 died at the scene and 11 were rushed to a nearby hospital with injuries. Two more people were declared dead at the hospital. The police have opened investigations into 14 cases of murder and nine cases of attempted murder, according to the statement.
Kathmandu: Nepal has begun exporting cement to India.
Palpa Cement, based in Sunawal-7 of the Nawalparasi district, says it has begun exporting cement to India, for the first time in the country.
During a function on Friday, the company announced the beginning of the export of its Tansen brand. On the first day, three trucks of cement have been exported.
The company produces 3,000 metric tonnes of cement every day, according to the company’s Public Relations Manager Jeevan Niraula.
For the current fiscal year, the government has also decided to provide some grant support to the cement companies involved in the export. It has already been a few years since the country has been independent in cement production, However, the export had not begun.
US President Joe Biden said Saturday he aims to “strengthen a strategic partnership” with Saudi Arabia during a controversial visit there next week, but added that he will hold true to “fundamental American values.”
“I know that there are many who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia. My views on human rights are clear and long-standing, and fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad, as they will be during this trip,” Biden wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece published Saturday.
While Biden is expected to press for increased Saudi oil production in the hope of taming spiraling fuel costs and inflation at home, his visit signals a shift: an apparent abandoning of efforts to ostracize the kingdom’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, over the horrific murder of a dissident.
As a presidential candidate, Biden said the 2018 murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi — a Saudi-born US resident known for writing critical articles about the kingdom’s rulers for The Washington Post — had made the country a “pariah.”
US intelligence findings released by the Biden administration identified bin Salman, often referred to as MBS, as the mastermind of the operation.
Last month Biden had sought to distance himself from the upcoming encounter, stressing to reporters he was going to meet with King Salman and his team.
But the White House confirmed earlier this week that he will meet MBS as part of that larger delegation during the trip.
“As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure,” the US leader wrote Saturday in the Washington Post. (AFP)
Colombo: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have both agreed to resign after thousands of demonstrators stormed the president’s residence to protest a crippling economic crisis in the South Asian nation.
Protesters in the city of Colombo barged through police barricades and stormed the president’s residence and office on Saturday, and targeted the prime minister’s private residence, setting it on fire, according to reports. Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the speaker of Sri Lanka’s Parliament, said Rajapaksa agreed to resign effective Wednesday.
Earlier, protesters carried Sri Lankan flags and helmets as they broke in to Rajapaksa’s residence, sitting on beds and swimming in a pool. “The president was escorted to safety,” a senior defense source told AFP.
The country, consisting of about 22 million, is suffering from a severe foreign exchange shortage, which has limited essential imports of fuel, food and medicine. This shortage has pushed the island into its worst financial situation in 70 years.
“To ensure the continuation of the Government including the safety of all citizens I accept the best recommendation of the Party Leaders today, to make way for an All-Party Government,” Wickremesinghe tweeted. “To facilitate this I will resign as Prime Minister.”
Protesters broke into the Sri Lankan leader’s official residence in Colombo on Saturday as more than 100,000 amassed outside, according to police, calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign over his handling of the country’s economic crisis.
Video broadcast on Sri Lankan television and on social media showed protesters enter President’s House — Rajapaksa’s office and residence in the commercial capital — after breaking through security cordons placed by police.
Images show demonstrators inside the building and hanging banners from the balcony, as well as swimming in the residence’s pool.
Kathmandu: Two persons infected by Nairobi fly are receiving treatment at Civil Hospital in Kathmandu.
The patients have shown severe skin infections caused by coming in contact with the fly, said Dr Gokarna Dahal, chief of the Vectorborne Disease Control Section under the Epidemiology and Infectious Disease Control Division.
Three to four infection cases were reported in the country last year too, he said, adding that it has now been reported in the east and Kanchanpur district in the west. “The infection is non-communicable and does not turn into a pandemic”, he added.
The fly releases poisonous acid when it comes in contact with the human body, causing skin rashes and itchy skin, he mentioned.
Dahal further said “Most of the infected people get recovery without any medical treatment. Treatment might be required in some cases.”
Tokyo: Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died, public broadcaster NHK said on Friday.
Abe, 67, had been delivering a stump speech near a train station in the western city of Nara when he was shot by an assailant.
TOKYO/Reuters: Japanese former prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot on Friday while campaigning in the city of Nara, a government spokesman said, with public broadcaster NHK saying he appeared to have been shot from behind by a man with a shotgun.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said he did not know Abe’s condition. Kyodo news agency and NHK said Abe, 67, appeared to be in a state of cardiac arrest when taken to hospital.
Shots were heard and a white puff of smoke was seen as Abe made a stump speech for a Sunday upper house election outside a train station in the western city, NHK said.
An NHK reporter on the scene said they could hear two consecutive bangs during Abe’s speech.
Matsuno, told a briefing Abe had been shot at about 11:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), adding, “Such an act of barbarity cannot be tolerated.”
TBS Television reported that Abe had been shot on the left side of his chest and apparently also in the neck.
Abe served two terms as prime minister to become Japan’s longest-serving premier before stepping down in 2020 citing ill health.
But he has remained a dominant presence over the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) party, controlling one of its major factions.
His protege, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, goes into an upper house election on Sunday hoping, analysts say, to emerge from Abe’s shadow and define his premiership.
Kishida suspended his election campaign after Abe’s shooting and was returning to Tokyo, media reported.
The ambassador of the United States, Rahm Emanuel, said he was saddened and shocked by the shooting of an outstanding leader and unwavering ally. The U.S. government and people were praying for Abe’s well-being, he said.
Abe has been best known for his signature “Abenomics” policy featured bold monetary easing and fiscal spending.
He also bolstered defence spending after years of declines and expanded the military’s ability to project power abroad.
In a historic shift in 2014, his government reinterpreted the postwar, pacifist constitution to allow troops to fight overseas for the first time since World War Two.
The following year, legislation ended a ban on exercising the right of collective self-defence, or defending a friendly country under attack.
Abe, however, did not achieve his long-held goal of revising the U.S.-drafted constitution by writing the Self-Defense Forces, as Japan’s military in known, into the pacifist Article 9.
He was instrumental in winning the 2020 Olympics for Tokyo, cherishing a wish to preside over the Games, which were postponed by a year to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abe first took office in 2006 as Japan’s youngest prime minister since World War Two. After a year plagued by political scandals, voter outrage at lost pension records, and an election drubbing for his ruling party, Abe quit citing ill health.
He became prime minister again in 2012.
Abe hails from a wealthy political family that included a foreign minister father and a great-uncle who served as premier.
Kathmandu: Nepal has called for the international community to adopt facilitating approach in the production and distribution of vaccines by further strengthening the existing global health system.
In the United Nations forums, Nepal has raised the issue to overcome the crisis looming large across the globe due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Addressing a session ‘Ensuring equal access to vaccines and resources in the Least Developed Countries’ in a UN High-Level Political Forum-2022 at New York on Wednesday, Permanent Representative of Nepal to the United Nations, Amrit Bahadur Rai presented Nepal’s opinion.
During the address, he said, “On the occasion, we appreciate the international community for expanding the availability of vaccines. We also call on the community to ensure easy access to vaccines as the international public good”.
Urging the developed countries to materialize the commitment to provide 0.7 percent of their gross national income to the least developed countries under the United Nations Official Development Assistance, Rai said, “We call on our development partners to increase the level of partnership and also realize the commitments”.
Various reports recently published have warned that around 100 million people would be compelled to face an acute crisis brought out by poverty this year and most of them would be from the least developed countries.
The issue has been seriously raised in international forums calling for the community to take the agenda in a passionate way.
Nepal has stressed the need for an increased level of international collaboration than before in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and also advancing partnerships to overcome the crisis exacerbated by food, fuel, and climate change.
LONDON/Reuters: Scandal-ridden Boris Johnson announced on Thursday he would quit as British prime minister after he was abandoned by ministers and most of his Conservative lawmakers.
Bowing to the inevitable as more than 50 ministers quit and lawmakers said he must go, an isolated and powerless Johnson spoke outside his Downing Street to confirm he would resign.
“The process of choosing that new leader should begin now. And today I have appointed a cabinet to serve, as I will until a new leader is in place,” Johnson said.
After days of battling for his job, the scandal-plagued Johnson had been deserted by all but a handful of allies after the latest in a series of scandals broke their willingness to support him.
“His resignation was inevitable,” Justin Tomlinson, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, said on Twitter. “As a party we must quickly unite and focus on what matters. These are serious times on many fronts.”
The Conservatives will now have to elect a new leader, a process which could take weeks or months. read more
A snap YouGov poll found that defence minister Ben Wallace was the favourite among Conservative Party members to replace Johnson, followed by junior trade minister Penny Mordaunt and former finance minister Rishi Sunak.
Many said he should leave immediately and hand over to his deputy, Dominic Raab, saying he had lost the trust of his party.
Keir Starmer, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, said he would call a parliamentary confidence vote if the Conservatives did not remove Johnson at once. read more
“If they don’t get rid of him, then Labour will step up in the national interest and bring a vote of no confidence because we can’t go on with this prime minister clinging on for months and months to come,” he said.
The crisis comes as Britons are facing the tightest squeeze on their finances in decades, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with soaring inflation, and the economy forecast to be the weakest among major nations in 2023 apart from Russia.
It also follows years of internal division sparked by the narrow 2016 vote to leave the European Union, and threats to the make-up of the United Kingdom itself with demands for another Scottish independence referendum, the second in a decade.
Support for Johnson had evaporated during one of the most turbulent 24 hours in recent British political history, epitomised by finance minister, Nadhim Zahawi, who was only appointed to his post on Tuesday, calling on his boss to resign.
Zahawi and other cabinet ministers had gone to Downing Street on Wednesday evening, along with a senior representative of those lawmakers not in government, to tell Johnson the game was up.
Initially, Johnson refused to go and seemed set to dig in, sacking Michael Gove – a member of his top ministerial team who was one of the first to tell him he needed to resign – in a bid to reassert his authority.
One ally had told the Sun newspaper that party rebels would “have to dip their hands in blood” to get rid of Johnson.
But by Thursday morning as a slew of resignations poured in, it became clear his position was untenable.
“This is not sustainable and it will only get worse: for you, for the Conservative Party and most importantly of all the country,” Zahawi said on Twitter. “You must do the right thing and go now.”
Some of those that remained in post, including defence minister Ben Wallace, said they were only doing so because they had an obligation to keep the country safe.
There had been so many ministerial resignations that the government had been facing paralysis. Despite his impending departure, Johnson began appointing ministers to vacant posts.
“It is our duty now to make sure the people of this country have a functioning government,” Michael Ellis, a minister in the Cabinet Office department which oversees the running of government, told parliament. Source: Reuters
Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka is reportedly in its greatest economic crisis since gaining independence from Britain in 1948, and its president claims he has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to assist his cash-strapped country import fuel.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa claimed that his conversation with Vladimir Putin was “extremely beneficial.”
It follows the weekend warning from Sri Lanka’s energy minister that the nation would soon run out of gasoline.
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated against the government on Wednesday in Colombo, the country’s capital.
Regarding his call with the Russian leader, Mr. Rajapaksa tweeted, “I asked an offer of credit support to import petroleum.”
Kathmandu: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma on Wednesday tendered his resignation after a parliamentary committee was formed to investigate accusations against him of manipulating tax rates involving an outsider to alter tax rates in the budget speech just before it was presented before the Parliament.
Addressing the meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR), Minister Sharma said he resigned to facilitate a fair investigation. He claimed that he has not committed any mistakes while formulating the budget.
The main opposition had been demanding a parliamentary probe against the finance minister accused of committing financial crimes to serve the interests of certain private sector businesses and business elites.
Earlier, the HoR had formed the Committee to carry out an investigation about the involvement of unauthorized persons in course of preparing the budget for the coming fiscal year 2022/23.
The 11-member probe committee was formed where Khagaraj Adhikari, Dev Prasad Gurung, Pushpa Bhusal Gautam, Pradeep Gyawali, Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal, Bimala BK, Laxman Lal Karna, Shakti Bahadur Basnet, Sarala Kumari Yadav, Sitaram Mahato and Surendra Prasad Yadav were the members.
Colombo: Sri Lanka, which has run out of dollars to purchase fuel and is printing rupees to pay local salaries, aims to stop injecting local currency to quash Asia’s fastest inflation.
The inflation rate is estimated to reach 60%, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament Tuesday before a monetary policy review due Thursday. Talks for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund are complicated because the nation is bankrupt, he added.
Wickremesinghe now sees Sri Lanka reaching a staff-level agreement with the IMF in August, delayed from the June deadline provided earlier.
The education ministry stated on Sunday that due to an extraordinary fuel crisis, Sri Lanka will be closing its schools for an additional week beginning July 4. Due to a lack of fuel for teachers and parents to transport students to classrooms, public and state-approved private schools will be closed for a week.
According to the Sri Lankan government, the curriculum would be covered in the following summer session.
Due to fuel shortages, schools were shuttered for a day last month statewide and remained closed for the past two weeks in urban areas.
“All government and government-approved private schools in Colombo city boundaries, as well as schools in other major cities in the other provinces, will be closed throughout the following week,” the Sri Lankan ministry of education declared.
Kathmandu: At least nine persons have been killed in a road accident in Ramechhap district in Nepal on Monday morning.
DSP Raj Kumar Thing at District Police Office, Ramechhap, said that the mishap happened when a passenger bus met with an accident at Sunapati Rural Municipality-5, Lubhughat.
According to him, all of them died on the spot. He added that 22 passengers injured in the accident are undergoing treatment at Dhulikhel Hospital.
DSP Thing said that a chopper has been called to airlift the seriously injured passengers to Kathmandu for treatment.
