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Acting Ministers assume responsibilities of ministries under President
As President Ranil Wickremesinghe embarks on a two-day official visit to India today (20), the responsibilities of the ministries under him have been temporarily assigned to the State Ministers during his absence. This move ensures the seamless functioning of the government and continues the momentum of critical initiatives during the President’s time away from the island.
Accordingly, the following State Ministers have been entrusted with acting roles in the respective ministries:
State Minister for Defence Pramitha Bandara Tennakoon will be the Acting Defence Minister during this period.
State Minister for Finance Shehan Semasinghe will take on the role of Acting Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilization, and National Policy.
State Minister for Investment Promotion Dilum Amunugama has been appointed as the Acting Minister for Investment Promotion.
State Minister for Technology Kanaka Herath will be Acting Minister of Technology.
Minister of State for Social Empowerment Anupa Pasqual, has been assigned dual roles as the Acting Minister of Women, Child Affairs, and Social Empowerment.
A United States judge has ruled that Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, dealing another blow to the tech titan in an antitrust case brought by the US government.
On Thursday, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that Google unlawfully monopolised markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges, which sit between buyers and sellers. Antitrust enforcers failed to show the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.
The ruling could allow prosecutors to argue for a breakup of Google’s advertising products. The US Department of Justice has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company’s publisher ad server and its ad exchange.
Google will now face the possibility of two different US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices.
A judge in Washington will hold a trial next week on the DOJ’s request to make Google sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its dominance in online search.
[Aljazeera]
US air strikes on a key oil terminal on Yemen’s Red Sea coast controlled by the Houthi movement have killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others, the Houthi-run health ministry says.
The US military said it had destroyed Ras Isa “to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue”.
The Houthi-led government in north-west Yemen said the terminal was a civilian facility and that the strikes constituted a “war crime”.
It was the deadliest known attack since President Donald Trump ordered an intensification of the US bombing campaign last month in response to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping and Israel linked to the Gaza war.
Several hours after the strikes on Ras Isa, the Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen.
Sirens sounded in several Israeli areas but there were no reports of any casualties or damage.
[BBC]
Donald Trump said the US will “take a pass” on brokering further Russia-Ukraine war talks if Moscow or Kyiv “make it very difficult” to reach a peace deal.
The US president told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he was not expecting a truce to happen in “a specific number of days” but he wanted it done “quickly”.
His comments came hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US would abandon talks “if it’s not going to happen”.
“We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, adding that the US had “other priorities to focus on”.
[BBC]
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