Sri Lanka yesterday ordered civil servants not to express opinions on social media after some officials claimed schoolchildren were fainting from a lack of food due to the country’s dire economic crisis.
In a fresh order to 1.5 million state employees, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Public Administration and Management said a long-established ban on speaking to reporters now extends to social media posts.
“Expressing opinions on social media by a public officer ... shall constitute an offense that leads to taking disciplinary action,” the order said.
Photo: AP
It followed claims from provincial health officials and teachers that dozens of students were fainting in schools because of a lack of food.
Since late last year, Sri Lanka’s 22 million people have been enduring the country’s worst-ever economic crisis after the government ran out of dollars to import many essentials.
This triggered huge shortages and unofficial inflation rates second only to Zimbabwe, as well as protests that led to the ouster of former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July.
Sri Lankan Minister of Health Keheliya Rambukwella dismissed claims of malnutrition among young children. He said that “politically motivated” public health workers were exaggerating the situation.
However, the World Food Programme said in its latest report that 6 million Sri Lankans — nearly one-third of the island country’s population — are “food insecure and require humanitarian assistance.”
Rajapaksa’s successor, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, has cracked down on anti-government protesters and banned demonstrations in much of the capital.
This month, his government struck a conditional agreement with the IMF on a US$2.9 billion bailout.
The lifeline is dependent on Colombo reaching a deal with creditors to restructure its external debt mountain of about US$51 billion.
Its biggest creditor China has so far not publicly shifted from its offer of issuing more loans instead of taking a cut on outstanding ones.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
RSS