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.”
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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