SRI LANKA
President bans strikes
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday banned strikes in the health and electricity sectors as trade union action that has crippled state-run hospitals entered its sixth day. Rajapaksa invoked a 1979 law prohibiting stoppages in the two sectors, declaring all related work “essential public services,” his office said. The regulations allow courts to hand down five-year jail terms and confiscate the assets of those refusing to work. The move followed health unions on Thursday ignoring a court order instructing them to suspend their strike pending a hearing of a petition against their action. The nation is in the grip of a foreign exchange crisis that has crippled the economy, and the unions are demanding better promotional prospects, restructuring of their pay scales and higher allowances. The government has refused, saying that the economic situation does not allow it to increase the salaries budget.
MICRONESIA
Breakaway plans suspended
Five Micronesian nations yesterday suspended breakaway plans from a Pacific islands political bloc as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the region. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau “have agreed to temporarily rescind their withdrawal” from the Pacific Islands Forum, the FSM Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The five territories announced a year ago that they were quitting the group after their nominee lost the vote for a new forum secretary general. They said the majority decision by the 18-nation body to elect former Cook Islands prime minister Henry Puna had overridden an informal agreement that the position would be filled by Micronesia and had caused an irreparable rift. However, in a statement the Micronesian leaders said they had discussed “specific substantive reforms of the Pacific Island Forum” and had given the forum until June for the reforms to materialize.
UNITED NATIONS
Ethiopian ‘horrors’ described
Fresh off a visit to Ethiopia, UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed on Friday described “unimaginable” horrors women have faced, and called for justice and accountability. At a news conference recapping her trip to Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amhara, Afar and Somali regions, Mohammed described an instance when a woman had been raped in front of her young child, and then was spurned by her husband, family and society. “Ethiopian women, writ large, were affected in a way that is unimaginable,” Mohammed said. The conflict between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan rebels started in November 2020 and has left thousands dead, while UN data show that hundreds of thousands have been pushed into famine. “In your worst nightmares, you cannot imagine what has happened to the women in Ethiopia,” Mohammed said, adding that she also saw widespread suffering due to famine. “There is everyone to blame” for these war-fueled horrors and in the 21st century “it’s unacceptable that one human being would do that to another,” she said. “Justice and accountability have to be had,” she said, without specifying what formal actions could be taken. “When men go to war, they come back and they’re heroes, doesn’t matter any injury that they have, right?” Mohammed asked. “But women have been injured — injured in a way that is unimaginable, and yet they’re not coming back heroes. They’re just outcast. That has to stop.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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