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Air quality drops countrywide

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By Ifham Nizam

The air quality level in Colombo and other major parts, indicating harmful levels has come down to moderate level since December.The National Building Research Organization (NBRO) says the air quality dropped countrywide.

NBRO Chief Scientist of the Air Pollution Management Unit Sarath Premasiri yesterday said that the recent increase in the spread of dust particles with the northeastern monsoon might have caused the drop in air quality.

Health experts, at the Colombo Municipal Council, warned that people suffering from respiratory diseases, children under five years old, vulnerable patients, pregnant mothers, and others, should be very careful.

The current concentration of PM2.5 in Sri Lanka is 23 (µg/m³). The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends 15 µg/m³ as the threshold concentration of Particulate Matter PM2.5 for 24 hrs mean.The concentration was 0.92 times the recommended limit.According to IQAir.com, earlier this month Colombo recorded 20.4 times the WHO annual air quality guideline value at PM2.5.

Sri Lanka has been experiencing poor air quality since at least early December.Official have said the previous significant drop reported on December 08 was due to the deep depression over Southeast Bay of Bengal carrying the air from India.

WHO has provided three equipment to measure the air quality, the Central Environment Authority (CEA) said.

According to CEA Environmental Pollution Control Division’s Director General Dr. Sanjaya Rathnayaka these measuring equipment have been placed in the cities of Anuradhapura, Kurunegala and Jaffna.Dr. Rathnayaka said that precise information pertaining to air pollution can be obtained with these state-of-the-art equipment.



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Man dies in Australia after whale strikes boat

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Australia's coastline hosts 10 large and 20 smaller species of whales (file photo BBC)

A whale has struck a boat in Australia, killing one man and leaving another injured, police say.

The men were on a fishing expedition when their boat was hit in waters off La Perouse, 14 km (nine miles) south-east of Sydney. The alarm was raised after the vessel was spotted unoccupied and circling.

Deaths caused by whales in the region are rare, and a state minister for New South Wales called it “an absolute freak accident”.

Police said in a statement the likely collision had caused the boat to tilt, throwing both men overboard. “Early reports are that a whale may have breached near the boat, or on to the boat,” Water Police Acting Superintendent Siobhan Munro said, adding that she had not seen a similar incident before.

The victim, 61, was found unconscious and died at the scene, officials said. The 53-year-old skipper was pulled from the water and taken to hospital, where he is in a stable condition.

Australia’s coastline hosts 10 large and 20 smaller species of whales. It is not yet clear which species was involved in Saturday’s collision.

(BBC)

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Mullaitivu judge resigns citing death threats

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By Saman Indrajith

President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was in Berlin on Friday issued directives to his secretary, Saman Ekanayake, for an immediate and comprehensive investigation into the abrupt resignation of Mullaitivu District Judge and Magistrate, T. Saravanarajah, who presided over the controversial Kurundimale Viharaya case. The judge cited receiving death threats as the reason for his resignation, sources of the President’s office said.

The President’s decision to order an investigation stemmed from the fact that the Judge resigned without formally informing the police or the Judicial Service Commission about the alleged death threats against him, according to sources.

In a letter dated September 23, 2023, addressed to the Judicial Services Commission, Saravanarajah conveyed his decision to step down from various judicial roles, including District Judge, Magistrate, Family Court Judge, Primary Court Judge, Small Claims Court Judge, and Juvenile Court Judge.

Reports circulating on social media and online platforms suggested that he had left the country for India. In these reports, he allegedly informed web journalists that he had received death threats in connection with the Kurundimale Viharaya case.

President’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake held discussions regarding the incident with Minister of Justice Wijayadasa Rajapaksa and Minister of Public Security, Tiran Alas. It was revealed during these discussions that the magistrate had not lodged any formal complaint about the alleged death threats prior to his resignation.

The magistrate left the country on September 24 and sent his resignation letter to the Judicial Service Commission the preceding day (Sept. 23).State intelligence agencies have apprised the President’s office of the magistrate’s purported close associations with officials from several foreign embassies.

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RW says great power rivalries and geopolitics emerging threat to Third World

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The West has labeled China’s Belt and Road Initiative as a cohesive program, and the participating countries like Sri Lanka are looked upon with suspicion, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Thursday (28) at the Berlin Global Conference.

“This will further hurt economic prospects in the global South, and the polarization will become more evident,” he said.

Great power rivalries and geopolitics have been an emerging threat for open access to trade, investment, capital, and technology that are vital for the economic recovery of the developing world, Wickremesinghe said.

He said that recently Jake Sullivan, United States national security advisor to President Joe Biden, rejected the Washington Consensus at an address at the Brookings Institute.

“With the new concept of de-risking and decoupling, the developing South, which was compelled to follow the Washington Consensus, is now asked to do a 180 degree turn even without consultation with us. With decoupling, whatever it is, we have been asked to change the system. We were compelled to get into it. Now we are told this is no longer relevant,” he said.

Wickremesinghe said the global south is now looking for alternative leadership, given the expansion of the BRICS and the downgrading of G20. In 2024, the US leadership might change and that people are wondering what policy changes would ensue.

“We know in 2024, the US leadership may not be there. Then who is going to act? So I think it’s a chance for the EU to come up and work with the other countries. There’s no one else. So I am suggesting that the EU, together with G20 BRICS, certainly USA, and some selected other Asian and African nations, the IMF and the NDBs, and you can bring in the big financial institutions, private ones, sit down and find urgent solutions,” he said.

The President said the world requires a constructive dialogue between the West and China.

“We need a constructive dialogue between the US and China. We need a constructive dialogue between the EU and China. Otherwise we will not move forward. So this is the stark reality. It’s a question of how we get together and how we work, and who’s going to take the lead in 2024,” he said.

Below are excerpts of the speech : “I don’t think in any other period of modern history have we gone through this type of a crisis. And in all these instances, it’s the developing economies and the global south that has suffered extremely. We are now faced with stubbornly high inflation in advanced economies, oil prices edging towards US $100 a barrel, and monetary tightening by the global central banks.

“One example is that Sri Lanka’s export to Europe has not increased at all this year, so far this year. That’s an indication of how we are being affected as we try to recover from the crisis we face. The confluences of factors face serious risk for many developing countries. In the global south, we are facing rising import costs, food, energy, insecurity, and the problems of our exports. The resulting balance of payment stress translates into a weaker economy for all of us. The difference between the advanced economies and the developing nations is that you all have all the buffers and reserves to deal with these shocks. We haven’t. And it’s from here that the sovereign debt crisis started.

“In this context, I think the world may be in another crisis if corrective measures are not taken immediately. Many developing countries find themselves with large debt burdens. For example, the IMF has no mechanism to face this new situation. When Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy, all foreign funding ceased and that started the political crisis. If not for the help given by the World Bank in re-graduating Sri Lanka, and the help given by my old friend Samantha Power in funding us with fertilizers, the chances are that I may not be, I would not be able to come here today.

“The funding on the table is woefully inadequate to address the vast challenges at hand. So we haven’t got any money. But we do have 100 billion with the IMF. Let’s start with that money. 100 billion is better than nothing. Then let’s see how we can raise the rest of it. Because though I talk of Sri Lanka, I must say Africa’s needs, especially of the low-income countries, are far greater than ours. The problems Africa faces need not be described by me because I think there are enough representatives here.

The developing countries require financing up to US 5.9 trillion to fulfil their nationally determined contributions. Then a further US 4 trillion, for clean energy technology to achieve net zero emissions, look at Sri Lanka’s financing needs for our climate prosperity plan to succeed. We need five billion US dollars by 2030.

“This is a country that’s bankrupt. And the IMF states, we’ll have for the next few years a growth rate of 3.5% if you are lucky. Here again, global coordination and leadership to resolve these challenges have simply not been sufficient to address the magnitude of the urgency of the problem. So what we need here is a new architecture.

Now we’ve been talking of the many crises and shocks we have discussed today. And we’ve been talking about what we have to do. First, we’ve all agreed that the core of the international financial architecture today was designed almost 80 years ago. The world has seen dramatic changes since then with many emerging economies in Asia, Middle East, South America, and Africa becoming global economic powerhouses.”

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