COVID-19 vaccine available in Sri Lanka by March: WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) assured that a qualified vaccine could be made available for Sri Lanka by March, next year, and the Sri Lankan health authorities have stepped in accordingly to improve cold chain requirements for the storage of doses ahead of inoculation, an official said yesterday.

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No government can deviate from current IMF path: CB Governor

By Nishel Fernando Colombo, Dec 30 (Daily Mirror) - Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe said yesterday any government could renegotiate the programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) but it would be required to follow the path chosen currently to get international support. Addressing a press conference, he said if the chosen path is broken, no support will be forthcoming internationally. The IMF programme began on September 1, last year. After disbursing the first tranche, it’s again negotiated what our commitments are before disbursing the next tranche. So, it will be a continuous process of renegotiation to change policies in a timely manner, whatever the government is in power for the next four years. There are no restrictions for that. But, the key element is we need to move forward with the programme in order to obtain international support,” he said. He said the foreign governments and other commercial entities are extending the debt relief only on th...

President acts on Daily Mirror article; calls for probe

By Shane Seneviratne President Ranil Wickremesinghe has drawn special attention to a Daily Mirror article published on Wednesday stating that a majority of underage girls in at least 17 police station areas within the Kandy Police Division have been involved in consensual sex. A senior official from the Presidential Secretariat, responding to the Daily Mirror article titled "Girls raped at their own will" published in Wednesday's edition, had inquired about this matter from the relevant doctor who gave the information to the journalist. It is also learnt that the Presidential Secretariat officials had informed the doctor that President Ranil Wickremesinghe has decided to appoint a special presidential investigation team to look into the matter. As reported in the Daily Mirror article, a recent survey has revealed that more than 5,000 girls under 16 years of age in the Kandy Police Division have been involved in consensual sex. Attorney-at-Law Dr. Palitha Bandara Suba...

Public Security minister used shell companies to own London flats

Colombo, Dec 15 - Sri Lanka’s public security minister, Tiran Alles, is the first sitting Sri Lankan minister to be identified in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Pandora Papers data trove as having offshore holdings. An ICIJ analysis of the leaked records and U.K.’s public property register shows that Alles, a media tycoon and politician, owns two British Virgin Islands companies that hold properties in London. The Pandora Papers is a trove of 11.9 million leaked documents obtained by ICIJ that were at the core of a 2021 global investigation exposing the financial deals and hidden assets of politicians, celebrities, business people and criminals in more than 200 countries. The files came from 14 offshore service providers that specialized in setting up shell companies and trusts in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions. ICIJ’s analysis shows that Alles’ Brompton Properties Ltd. owns a flat in an affluent area of London that was purchased for about $960,000 ...

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