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PM underscores the outstanding universal value of Anuradhapura’s Living Heritage at International Expert Conference in Paris
Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya who is on an official visit to France from 31 March to 2 April 2025, participated in the high-level segment of the International Expert Conference on “An Integrated and Sustainable Approach to Safeguarding the World Heritage Property of the Sacred City of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka and Associated Living Heritage”, held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on Tuesday 1 April 2025.
The International Conference was organized by UNESCO in partnership with the Government of Sri Lanka to showcase the universal significance of the Sacred City of Anuradhapura and its associated living heritage, and to garner international cooperation for its conservation and sustainable development.
Inaugurating the Conference, Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay warmly welcomed Prime Minister Amarasuriya to UNESCO, while recalling her own memorable visit to Sri Lanka in July 2024 where she had the valued opportunity to witness firsthand the “exceptional heritage” of the Sacred City of Anuradhapura, which she described as “a spiritual hub, a royal capital of over a 1,000 years, and the birthplace of Theravada Buddhism.” Referring to the inscription of Anuradhapura in the world heritage list in 1982, she underscored the importance of global solidarity and international cooperation in safeguarding this extraordinary world heritage for posterity, and the intent of the Conference to explore further means of its conservation and sustainable development through international cooperation. In concluding her address, the Director-General recalled the words of renowned Sri Lankan archaeologist and former President of ICOMOS International Dr. Roland Silva, that Anuradhapura continues to be “a modern wonder of the world.’
Addressing the high-level segment, Dr. Harini Amarasuriya outlined Sri Lanka’s national vision to preserve the global heritage of the Sacred City of Anuradhapura for education, pilgrimage and heritage tourism, while ensuring the maintenance of a careful balance between conservation, sustainable development, and the needs of local communities. The Prime Minster also extended her deep appreciation to Director-General Azoulay for her vision and leadership which was instrumental in convening this International Conference dedicated to Anuradhapura.
Striking a personal note, the Prime Minister reminisced about her childhood and youthful memories of this heritage city, where she felt “the magic of Anuradhapura, the sense of awe at the creativity and skills of our ancestors.” She described Anuradhapura as “a unique mix of the ’sacred’ (activities belonging to the spiritual realm) and the ’profane’ (relating to the everyday and the material realm),” while also highlighting the advanced architectural and hydraulic expertise of this ancient civilization, whose origins can be traced back to 900 BCE.
Referring to UNESCO’s institutional mandate, the Prime Minister commended the organization—led by the Director-General, the secretariat, and its member states—for its invaluable contributions to advancing global discussions on education reform, mainstreaming cultural recognition, and harnessing knowledge and innovation for global peace and sustainable development amid complex geopolitical challenges.
Delivering the keynote address, the Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs Dr. Hiniduma Sunil Senevi presented the integrated management plan of the Government of Sri Lanka towards the sustainable and integrated management of the Sacred City of Anuradhapura. He reiterated the Sri Lanka Government’s commitment to preserving the Outstanding Universal Value of the heritage site through inclusive, sustainable development. He further urged the international community to join hands with Sri Lanka in safeguarding this shared heritage for future generations, and to ensuring that its benefits reach local communities.
The Conference brought together internationally recognized experts, senior officials of government, development partners, heritage professionals and the diplomatic corps in exploring innovative and sustainable approaches to integrated site management. The key themes discussed comprised the integration of tangible and intangible heritage, capacity building, strengthened community participation, the application of digital tools in conservation, sustainable tourism aligned with World Heritage guidelines, and the critical importance of international partnerships and resource mobilization for long-term preservation of this heritage site.
The Prime Minister had a meeting with Director-General Azoulay on the sidelines of the Expert Conference where thematic areas of cooperation were discussed. The Prime Minister highlighted Sri Lanka’s interest in enhancing UNESCO’s presence in the country through suitable programmes, and apprised the Director-General on progress in Sri Lanka’s Category II South Asia Centre for Teacher Development (SACTD), Sri Lanka’s engagement in the programme of work of UNESCO, Sri Lanka’s educational reforms and areas of synergy with UNESCO, as well as the country’s commitment to the annual celebration of Vesak in UNESCO, among other matters. The Director-General reiterated UNESCO’s continued commitment to supporting Sri Lanka’s multifaceted collaboration with the international body.
At a reception hosted by the Ambassador and Permanent Delegation of Sri Lanka to UNESCO, the Prime Minister underscored the importance of Sri Lanka’s 75-year partnership with UNESCO, and reaffirmed the country’s commitment to further strengthening this collaboration in key areas of cooperation. She did so in her capacity as the Minister of Education, Chairperson of the Sri Lanka National Commission for UNESCO, and Chairperson of the Central Cultural Fund.
The Prime Minister also formally handed over to the Director-General, Sri Lanka’s Instrument of Accession to the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, demonstrating the country’s commitment to promoting cultural diversity, artistic freedom, and international collaboration. Ambassadors and Permanent Delegates accredited to UNESCO, senior representation of the UNESCO Secretariat including Director and team of the World Heritage Centre, the President of the France – Sri Lanka Friendship Group in the French National Assembly, expert participants of the Conference, academics, scholars and senior officials of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs attended the reception and conveyed their warm greetings and felicitations to the Prime Minister.
The delegation of the Prime Minister comprised the Minister of Buddhasasana Religious and Cultural Affairs Dr. Hiniduma Sunil Senevi; the Director General, Central Cultural Fund Dr. Nilan Cooray and the Director General, Department of Archaeology Prof. Thusitha Mendis. The Prime Minster was assisted by the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Sri Lanka to UNESCO Manisha Gunasekera and senior staff of the Embassy and the Permanent Delegation of Sri Lanka to UNESCO.
[Prime Minister’s Media Division]
The head of AI company Anthropic has called for the pace of development of artificial intelligence models to slow down and to be closely monitored.
In an essay, Dario Amodei said developing AI was not in question, but the risks associated with it were “serious” and companies and governments must be given time to address them.
The bosses of two rival AI firms, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, have both said they agree with Amodei.
There have been growing concerns recently about the technology’s potential risks. An AI researcher who left Anthropic this week told the BBC that “if we don’t slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future”.
Jacob Coxon told Laura Kuenssberg that people working at AI companies were “genuinely frightened… genuinely concerned about the fate of humanity in the next two years”.
“It’s not at all an exaggeration to say that the people who are involved with both founding these companies and building the tech believe there is a possibility of human extinction,” Coxon said.
“Many of the people who are sort of deep in the weeds on actually coding the thing believe that there is like a greater than ten percent chance, or even greater. Some smaller, but they all have different numbers for a probability that humans might die. And they all keep this in their head on a daily basis while working on the technology.”
In Amodei’s essay, called We Must Pace the Frontier and made public on Saturday, he proposed a three-point plan that includes independent monitoring of AI models as they are developed, industry-wide regulation and global regulation.
As his proposal made the rounds, even competitors voiced support for the idea of third-party monitors who could evaluate the safety of models as they are developed.
“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X. He called independent evaluators “a great idea.”
In a new interview with Fortune Magazine, Altman had sounded similar safety concerns, saying standards were “not at a place” to push AI capabilities much further.
He added that he believed AI beyond human control is “absolutely” possible.
Elon Musk meanwhile said the Anthropic boss was “right”.
The warnings have prompted calls to action, but US President Donald Trump has so far rejected such fears, saying on Thursday he was concerned “if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position”.
Cyber-security concerns have grown as new models have exhibited more and more powerful hacking capabilities.
Anthropic withheld its Mythos model from public use when it was announced in April that it could independently escape the testing environment, known as the sandbox.
In the run-up to the release of its most recent Astra model, OpenAI cited cybersecurity concerns as it explained it had paused certain aspects of the model’s development.
Safety has also taken centrestage in the rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI.
Amodei, who had previously worked as a vice president at OpenAI, has said he co-founded Anthropic in 2021 so he could build safer and more trusted AI models.
In his essay, Amodei pointed out that AI had advanced “drastically faster” including its “ability to build the next generation of AI” – and mentioned an incident involving rival OpenAI which has revealed that agents conducted cybersecurity attacks on targets they were not asked to attack in July.
The OpenAI agents had “essentially acted as a fanatically devoted collective”, Amodei said. OpenAI has said it is slowing down training of certain advanced AI models and tools as a result.
Amodei called for “building AI at a balanced rate that aims to ensure its safety while still achieving its benefits”.
This would not mean “halting model training or technical progress, but ensuring companies take adequate time to align and safeguard their models, and for third party evaluators to confirm this”.
He was committing Anthropic to this “unilaterally” – as well as calling on governments “to require other frontier companies to match”.
Amodei said he recognised that regulation might not be able to keep up with the pace of AI, and therefore called on AI companies to “voluntarily work together to set standard” in parallel with regulation.
The Anthropic CEO went on to address the impact that a slowdown would have on the industry and competition with leading developers worldwide, particularly China.
“I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong,” Amodei said.
This would have to be done in a co-ordinated manner “without sacrificing commercial advantage or the United States’ lead in AI”. Any slowdown would have to be limited, he said, to avoid allowing China to pull ahead.
He urged the US government to take measures so that US companies’ AI chips could not be sold to China – or the technology shared with authoritarian countries.
His former employee, Jacob Coxon, told the BBC, however, that the initiative to slow down must go beyond the US – “there’ll need to be some sort of co-ordinated slowdown with China if we’re going to avoid a race at an international scale”.
Amodei’s post has prompted a wide range of responses.
Clement Delangue, the CEO of the AI platform Hugging Face, said he was launching a new project called the Open Alignment Initiative, adding he wanted to be among “embedded evaluators” that Amodei proposed could be part of a solution.
Hugging Face was hacked by OpenAI agents earlier this year prompting an outcry over AI safety.
“Let’s make AI safer by making it more transparent,” Delangue wrote on X.
Elon Musk also voiced his support, writing that “Dario is right”.
Musk, whose SpaceXAI makes the controversial chatbot Grok, once called Anthropic “evil” but has changed his tone since signing a $15bn deal to sell compute capacity to Anthropic in May.
However some observers suggested that Amodei’s post was less about safety than about consolidating control over AI technology.
“Dario makes the case to stop open source and concentrate enormous technological and economic power with Anthropic,” wrote Chamath Palihapitiya, investor and co-host of the tech podcast “All-In”.
Notions of slowing down or even pausing AI development have long been met with such cynicism in certain corners of Silicon Valley, with critics accusing leading AI developers of hyping their technology as a marketing ploy.
Anthropic and OpenAI are both reportedly preparing for potentially record-setting initial public offerings.
[BBC]
If spin is to decide the Women’s T20 Asia Cup final, both India and Sri Lanka have plenty to call upon. India’s spin attack, led by Deepti Sharma, has taken 26 wickets in the tournament, the most by a side. Sri Lanka are next with 25. That makes it seem like a spin vs spin and more spin kind of title contest.
On the plus side for India is that they have appeared well-rounded on the whole. Smriti Sharma and Shafali Verma have scored the bulk of the runs.
Sri Lanka, by contrast, have had to fight for momentum with the bat on the slow Dubai pitches. They were 33 for 4 in the semi final against Pakistan before Hrshitha Samarawickrema and Kavisha Dilhari revived and then completed the chase. Prior to that, they were 44 for 5 against Bangladesh and had to depend on Samarawickrama’s composed knock to seal their semi-final spot. They were also 45 for 5 against Indonesia in the league stage, before Nilakshi Silva lifted them.
That batting order has looked shaky. Chamari Athapaththu allying just 63 runs from four innings and Imesha Dulani 64 from four innings is a concern. And India’s bowling – quick bowler Nandani Sharma has been in good form too – might be tougher to handle than what Sri Lanka have faced so far.
India’s recent record against Sri Lanka also makes them favourites. They swept the five-match T20I series in December 2025 at home, and have won nine of their last ten T20Is against them.
But Sri Lanka’s one victory in that stretch came in the biggest game of all: the 2024 Asia Cup final in Dambulla, when they chased down 166 with eight wickets to spare to win the title.
That means Sri Lanka have both a challenge and a cause for optimism. They will need their batters to withstand Nandani and India’s spin trio – Deepti, N Shree Charani and Prema Rawat – and find a way to build partnerships, rather than leave too much for the middle and lower-middle order to do.
India have the balance and form while Sri Lanka, the defending champions, know better than most that a final can reset the equation. Not to forget, despite their struggles with the bat, Sri Lanka have an all-win record in the Asia Cup so far, the same as India.
Shafali Verma has made fast starts a recurring theme, scoring 168 runs in four matches at an impressive strike rate of 169.69. Two of her knocks have been 64s, and she has shown little sign of taking her foot off the accelerator. In the final, how she sets up the innings could be crucial.
Sri Lanka have found ways to recover from early collapses, with different players stepping up at different stages. But they need their talisman, Chamari Athapaththu, to come to the fore in the final. Athapaththu has made an impact with the ball – she is the tournament’s joint-highest wicket-taker – but her batting is yet to click. She has crossed 30 only once in four matches, in the opener against UAE. A noteworthy contribution with the bat, to go with her threat with the ball, could give Sri Lanka the spark they need against India.
India have fielded an unchanged XI in the tournament so far and, barring injuries, should do the same.
India Women (probable): Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Pratika Rawal, Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Richa Ghosh (wk), Bharti Fulmali, Deepti Sharma, Prema Rawat, Kranti Gaud, N Shree Charani, Nandani Sharma
Sri Lanka have used 14 of their 17 players. In the semi-final against Pakistan, they left out Vishmi Gunaratne and Chethana Vimukthi for Hasini Perera and Mithali Ayodhya, which might be their ideal XI.
Sri Lanka Women (probable): Imesha Dulani, Chamari Athapaththu (capt), Sanjana Kavindi, Harsthitha Samarawickrama, Hasini Perera, Kavisha Dilhari, Nilakshika Silva, Kaushini Nuthyangana (wk), Sugandika Kumari, Chamudi Praboda, Mithali Ayodhya
The Italian Naval Vessel ‘ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi’ departed the Port of Colombo today, 12 September 2026, after completing a replenishment stop for logistics and services.
During the ship’s stay, the Commanding Officer of ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi, Captain Marco GUERRIERO, called on the Commander Western Naval Area, Rear Admiral Harsha De Silva, at the Western Naval Command Headquarters.
Members of the visiting crew also toured several tourist attractions across the Colombo area during their port call.
Death toll from Philippines ferry fire rises to 76, with more still missing
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It’s spin vs spin as India and Sri Lanka battle for Asia Cup title
Atmospheric conditions are favorable for afternoon thundershowers in most parts of the Island today [13]
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House to debate 22A, Judicature Bill next week
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