International

* Three offshore quakes of magnitude 7.2-8.1 strike over 8 hours * Small tsunami waves hit New Zealand's North Island * Authorities cancel tsunami warnings after biggest waves pass A powerful series of undersea quakes struck north-east of New Zealand on Friday, but tsunami waves that forced many people on the country's North Island to flee to high ground passed without causing substantial damage. Officials had warned that waves could reach three metres (10 feet) above high tide levels after the quakes - the strongest a magnitude 8.1 - but the threat had passed by the afternoon, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said. ‘It's hard not to feel like our country is having a run of bad luck, when you have an earthquake, tsunami and pandemic to contend with all in one day,’ New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. Video footage posted on social media showed surges of water entering a marina in Northland and on the North Island's East Cape region. Earlier on Friday, workers, students and residents in areas like Northland and Bay of Plenty, on the northern coast near Auckland, fled beachside towns for higher ground after the three quakes, striking in an eight-hour period, triggered blaring tsunami sirens and warnings to evacuate via text messages. An emergency alert was issued for coastal areas around the South Pacific country of 5 million, with people to stay away from the water's edge. There were no reports of damage or casualties from the quakes. The third and strongest quake struck the Kermadec Islands, a mostly uninhabitated group of islands some 800 km (500 miles) northeast of the North Island, on Friday morning, shortly after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in the same region. Earlier, a large 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck just east of the North Island. Linda Tatare, a resident of Anaura Bay, on the North Island's east coast, said the small community of about 50 left for higher ground in the morning. ‘Everyone, and their dogs, are up in the hills,’ Tatare told Reuters. ‘We are safe. We can all see our properties from here.’ Tsunami warnings were also put out for Pacific islands including New Caledonia and Vanuatu, while smaller tsunami waves may be recorded as far away as Antarctica and parts of South America, the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Friday's series of quakes was caused by tectonic movement on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific plates, part of the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire that New Zealand sits on. A decade ago, a magnitude 6.3 quake killed 185 people in the South Island city of Christchurch. Australia issued a marine tsunami threat for Norfolk Island, a tiny Australian territory with about 1,750 residents, but said there was no threat to the mainland. Norfolk Island residents in areas threatened by land inundation or flooding were advised to go to higher ground or inland, the Bureau of Meteorology said, as small tsunami waves impacted the coastline.    

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan (right) and his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa gesture at the end of the Trade and Investments conference, during Khan’s two-day visit, in Colombo, Sri Lanka yesterday.  Pakistan yesterday offered $50 million new credit line to Sri Lanka for co-operation in the field of defence and security.  The announcement was made by Prime Minister Khan at the conclusion of his visit to the island nation. “The two sides stressed the need for stronger partnership for supporting and co-ordinating with each other in dealing with matters related to security, terrorism, organised crime and drug and narcotic trafficking as well as intelligence-sharing,” a Joint Communique issued by the Foreign Ministries of the two countries said. Pakistan will also provide Rs52 million for promotion of sports in Sri Lanka. At an interactive session with the sports community, the PM, who led Pakistan to World Cup victory in 1992, announced the commissioning of the ‘Imran Khan High Performance Sports Centre’ in Colombo as well. Pakistan will also establish Asian Civilisation and Culture Centre at University of Peradeniya at the famous tourist resort of Kandy. (Reuters)

Sri Lanka’s minority Muslims demonstrated in Colombo yesterday demanding an end to forced cremations of Covid-19 victims as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan arrived on an official visit. Dozens of Muslims carried a mock janazah, or coffin, denouncing the Sri Lankan government’s policy of banning burials of virus victims disregarding their funeral rites. The demonstration was aimed at the visit of Khan who two weeks ago had weighed in on the plight of Muslims in Sri Lanka. Khan had welcomed an announcement by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on February 10 that burials would be allowed, but a day later Colombo backtracked and said there would be no change in the cremation-only policy. “Respect Prime Minister’s statement and allow burials,” said a banner carried by the demonstrators who assembled at an open space in front of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office. His government has rejected international pleas and recommendations from its own experts to allow Muslims to bury their dead in line with Islamic custom. The government first banned burials in April amid concerns — which experts say are baseless — by influential Buddhist monks that burying bodies could contaminate groundwater and spread the virus. The World Health Organisation has said there is no such risk, recommending both burial and cremation of virus victims. Traditionally, Muslims bury their dead. Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhists, who are strong backers of the current government, are typically cremated, as are Hindus. In December, the authorities ordered the forced cremation of at least 19 Muslim Covid-19 victims, including a baby, after their families refused to claim their bodies from a hospital morgue. This stoked dismay and anger among the Muslim community, moderates and abroad, with the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Co-operation repeatedly expressing concern. Muslim community leaders say more than half the 450 Covid-19 victims were from the Muslim minority which accounts for just 10% of the 21mn population. Muslims have a disproportionate number of fatalities because they don’t seek treatment, fearing they will be cremated if they are diagnosed with the virus, they have said.

Intermittent gunfire rang out Monday at a Sri Lankan high security prison where a riot by inmates over a surge of coronavirus infections left at least eight dead and 55 wounded, police said. Hundreds of police surrounded the Mahara prison just outside the capital Colombo as prison guards sought to end the unrest. Inmates fought with guards on Sunday and into the night after setting fire to the kitchens and briefly took two warders hostage, residents and police said. ‘The two officers have been rescued and hospitalised,’ police spokesman Ajith Rohana said. ‘The situation is under control.’ Six hundred officers, including 200 police commandos, were deployed around the perimeter, he added. Prison authorities would not say however whether they had taken back the whole Mahara complex. The bodies of eight inmates were taken to the nearby Ragama hospital, medical sources said. Another 55 wounded prisoners, some in critical condition, were admitted on Sunday night. Inmates broke out of their cells to protest over a surge of coronavirus infections, officials said. Sri Lankan prisons have seen weeks of unrest as the number of Covid-19 cases in jails exceeded 1,000 by Saturday. Two inmates have died of the disease. Last week, a prisoner was killed when he fell while trying to scale the walls of a jail in the central Bogambara region during unrest. Prisons across the country went into a lockdown last week as the number of cases among inmates and guards increased. The number of Covid-19 deaths across the country has increased six-fold this month to 116, while infections have more than doubled to 23,484. Sri Lanka had reported 19 deaths out of 10,424 cases at the end of October. The South Asian island nation of 21 million had claimed success in containing the virus which was first detected on January 27 in a Chinese tourist. Sri Lanka eased a three-month curfew on June 28, but a second wave of infections hit in October. Authorities have said a newer and more virulent strain of the virus was now spreading.

Commemorations for Tamil Tiger rebels killed in Sri Lanka's decades-long civil war were banned on Friday after court petitions by the government of strongman President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka's 37-year conflict began in 1972 when Tamil Tigers waged a bloody war against government troops in a campaign for a separate homeland for their ethnic minority group. Rajapaksa was defence chief when the Tigers were finally defeated in 2009 while his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was president, winning them the adoration of many in the Sinhala majority population. For years, Tamils were not allowed to commemorate their war dead, but a ban on "Heroes' Day" ceremonies at cemeteries was lifted after Mahinda was voted out of office in 2015. The Rajapaksa brothers returned to power last year however when Gotabaya was elected president. His government petitioned courts in the Tamil-majority north of Sri Lanka this week and obtained prohibition orders against the commemorations, the attorney general's office said. The main Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), protested against the ban on Friday. "Even in the remembrance of the dead there is discrimination against the Tamils in Sri Lanka," TNA legislator Abraham Sumanthiran said on Twitter. He said the majority Sinhalese governments had not barred the leftist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, from commemorating their mainly Sinhalese comrades killed in two failed insurrections in 1971 and in the late 1980s. Police said they had already arrested four people "for posting Heroes' Day-related messages on social media". The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) declared in the late 1980s that November 27 would be their "Heroes' Day" in memory of self-styled Tiger Lieutenant Shankar, their first combatant killed by security forces in 1982. Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist war cost the lives of more than 100,000 people, according to United Nations estimates. The UN accused Sri Lankan forces of killing at least 40,000 Tamil civilians in its military campaign, an allegation denied by successive governments.

Sri Lanka's government is digging a moat around one of its landfills to keep out hungry elephant herds and reduce conflicts between the animals and villagers. Dozens of elephants lumber out of the forest daily into a garbage dump near the eastern town of Ampara, rummaging through mounds of rubbish for wilted vegetable scraps. This has become a common sight at the country's three largest landfills, which are located next to wildlife protection zones. The elephants consume plastic along with the food scraps, which slowly kills them, officials say. In 2019, a record 361 elephants died mainly because of humans, local environmental groups reported. The Ampara landfill was created around a decade ago in the middle of an elephant corridor that is home to 200 to 300 elephants. Electric fences have not worked to keep the determined animals away. "There is no proper plan or a system for this," said P.H. Kumara, part of the Gal Oya Farmers Committee, a farming collective in the region around Ampara. "Government institutions have established landfills on the border of wildlife protection zones. Once that is done, the wild elephants and other wild animals who eat the rubbish die." The government is now trying trenches around the facility to deter the animals. Villagers who have had an uneasy co-existence with the wild herds, say the situation is only getting worse. "The wild elephants that come to the landfill hang around here day and night," said Kumara. "Then they go into neighbouring villages and harm the villagers, their property and agricultural land. The end result is that the human-elephant conflict gets worse and we lose elephants that are a national asset." There are around 7,500 wild elephants in Sri Lanka, which has a population of 22 million people. Domesticated elephants are revered on the island and are used in religious and cultural events throughout the year.

Sri Lanka has saved some 120 pilot whales in a gruelling overnight rescue involving the navy, officials said Tuesday, after the island nation's biggest stranding. Three pilot whales and one dolphin died of injuries following the mass beaching on Monday on the country's western coast at Panadura some 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of the capital Colombo. A handful of whales had started beaching in the early afternoon and their numbers swelled to more than 100 by dusk, overwhelming local volunteers, resident Pathum Hirushan told AFP. ‘Some of the fishermen from the area tried to push back the whales. The sea was rough and the waves would bring them back to shore,’ Hirushan said. ‘It was very tiring, but later the navy came in with their boats and worked through the night.’ The navy and the coastguard, as well as dozen of volunteers, were able to move the other mammals into deeper waters with the aid of small patrol craft by dawn on Tuesday, navy spokesman Indika de Silva told AFP. Volunteers had come forward to help with the rescue despite the region being under a days-long lockdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Pilot whales -- which can grow up to six metres (20 feet) long and weigh a tonne -- are highly social. The causes of mass strandings remain unknown despite scientists studying the phenomenon for decades. The wildlife department's chief veterinarian Tharaka Prasad told AFP autopsies were carried out on the dead whales and officials were ‘satisfied they were disoriented’. He hailed the rescue as one of the most successful in the world. Authorities had braced for mass deaths, after some 360 out of 470 pilot whales that beached in a remote harbour in Australia's southern island state of Tasmania in September were not able to be saved. Sri Lanka's Marine Environment Protection Authority had said Monday that the Panadura stranding was the South Asian country's largest. The last mass beaching in Sri Lanka was in June 2017 when 20 pilot whales were stranded at a beach in the coastal town of Sampur near Trincomalee harbour in the country's northeast. All were saved. A sperm whale was stranded inside Trincomalee harbour in April 2011 and two navy boats guided it out into deeper waters where it was reunited with waiting whales. The waters around Trincomalee, used by Allied forces as a staging post during World War II, have a high concentration of blue and sperm whales.

Sri Lanka has started shipping 242 containers of hazardous waste, including body parts from mortuaries, back to Britain after a two year court battle by an environment watchdog, officials said Saturday. Several Asian countries have in recent years been pushing back against an onslaught of international refuse from wealthier nations and have started turning back the unwanted shipments of garbage as they battle against being used as the world's trash dump. The first 20 containers of medical waste, which included body parts from mortuaries, were loaded on the MV Texas Triumph on Friday and another 65 will be sent within a week, customs spokesman Sunil Jayaratne said. "The balance will be shipped as soon as another vessel is available," Jayaratne said. Sri Lanka's court of appeal two weeks ago ordered the repatriation of the bio-waste from hospitals and tonnes of plastic waste imported in violation of local and international shipping regulations. The imports arrived between September 2017 and January 2018 and the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) had petitioned courts to get it rejected. Customs did not reveal the type of waste, but officials had said it included rags, bandages and body parts from mortuaries. In September, 260 tonnes of separate waste in another 21 containers was sent back after Britain agreed to take it back. Local authorities discovered the new waste after the legal action was started against the 242 containers held in Colombo port and a free trade area near the capital. Sri Lanka's customs maintained that all the containers had been brought into the country in violation of international law governing the shipment of hazardous waste, including plastics. A Sri Lankan investigation last year into nearly 3,000 tonnes of illegally imported hazardous waste found the importer had reshipped about 180 tonnes to India and Dubai in 2017 and 2018. Besides Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have also returned hundreds of container-loads of refuse back to their countries of origin.

Sri Lanka will not allow a Panamanian-registered oil tanker stricken off its coast to leave its waters until the vessel’s owners pay a $2mn fire-fighting bill, government officials have said. The New Diamond, carrying 270,000 tonnes of crude, was en-route from Kuwait to India when an engine room explosion on September 3 killed a Filipino crewman and set off a massive fire. Firefighters from Sri Lanka and India battled and put out the blaze on the vessel, which is now tied to a tug boat and guarded by a Sri Lankan navy ship some 140km (90 miles) east of the Indian Ocean island. Official sources said the owners of the tanker had planned to begin towing the stricken vessel to the United Arab Emirates. But Sri Lanka’s Marine Environment Protection Agency (MEPA) said on Thursday the ship can leave only after paying a $2.38mn bill for firefighting and compensation for marine pollution. Last week, Sri Lanka had said the tanker’s owner, Liberian-registered Porto Emporios Shipping Inc, had agreed to pay the firefighting costs, but on Thursday announced that no payment had yet been received. “MEPA will grant approval to tow the ship away from of Sri Lankan waters once the negotiation process (for payment) is completed,” the agency said in a letter to the navy. The vessel is managed by New Shipping Limited of Greece. The remaining 22 crew of the New Diamond were rescued and are in quarantine as a precaution against the coronavirus in the southern port city of Galle. The vessel leaked some of its heavy fuel oil but salvage workers have since fixed the rupture, the navy said adding that there was no risk of its crude oil cargo leaking. Sri Lanka has said it wants to charge the skipper of the tanker for negligence and causing pollution.

Sri Lanka has shipped back to Britain container-loads of waste that the government said was brought into the island in violation of international laws governing the shipping of hazardous material. The 21 containers -- holding up to 260 tonnes of rubbish -- first arrived by ship in the capital Colombo's main port between September 2017 and March 2018, customs told AFP, adding that they departed Sri Lanka on Saturday. They were meant to carry used mattresses, carpets and rugs, but had also contained hospital waste, officials said. "The shipper had agreed to take back these 21 containers," customs spokesman Sunil Jayaratne told AFP on Sunday. "We are working to secure compensation from those responsible for getting the containers into the country." Customs did not reveal the type of hospital waste, but previous illegally imported containers had included rags, bandages and body parts from mortuaries, according to officials. Another 242 containers from Britain, which the government said was carrying illegal garbage in violation of international law, remains abandoned at the same port and at a free trade zone outside the capital. They arrived in 2017 and 2018. The government is currently engaged in legal action against the shipper to have the 242 containers removed from the country. A Sri Lankan investigation last year into nearly 3,000 tonnes of illegally imported hazardous waste found the importer had reshipped about 180 tonnes to India and Dubai in 2017 and 2018. Several Asian countries, sick of being the wealthy world's rubbish dump, have in the past two years turned back container-loads of waste from foreign shores.

Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in Sunday as Sri Lanka's prime minister after a landslide victory for the ruling party in Wednesday's parliamentary elections, officials said. Monks chanted prayers as the 74-year-old was sworn in for another five-year term before President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his younger brother, at a historic Buddhist temple in Kelaniya, 10 kilometres from the capital. The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Party (Sri Lanka Peoples' Party) won 145 seats (59 per cent of the vote) and obtained the support of minor parties to seal a two-thirds majority of 150 members in the 225-seat parliament. The main opposition, the United People's Front (SJB), trailed far behind with only 24 per cent of the votes and 54 seats. The results have bolstered the powers of both Rajapaksa brothers. Prime Minister Rajapaksa served two terms as the country's president from 2005 to 2015. He then returned to parliament after a constitutional amendment by the former government limited presidential terms to two, effectively stopping him from contesting for a third term. He has also served as prime minister on three previous occasions. The victory of the ruling party is a boost for President Rajapaksa, who took office in November last year, as he now has a strong parliamentary majority to pass legislation and any amendments to the constitution.

Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections handed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his older brother an overwhelming majority, results showed yesterday, giving the family power to enact sweeping changes to the constitution of the island nation.  Rajapaksa had sought, and achieved, a two-thirds majority for his Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party and its allies to be able to restore full executive powers to the presidency, a move analysts say could push the country toward authoritarianism. The ruling group won 150 seats in the 225-member parliament, according to a tally published by the election commission from Wednesday’s vote. The two-thirds majority will see Rajapaksa’s brother and ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, 74, taking over as prime minister on Sunday as the tourism-dependent nation struggles to recover from last year’s deadly militant attacks and, more recently, lockdowns to control the coronavirus pandemic. The brothers’ popularity has risen among the majority Sinhalese since the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks and because of their record in crushing Tamil separatist rebels in 2009.  President Rajapaksa, 71, said the restoration of full executive powers was necessary to implement his agenda to make the country of 21mn economically and militarily secure. No timeline has been set for such a move. “We will ensure (Sri Lanka) will not stand disappointed during our tenure,” Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Twitter. Currently, significant power is bestowed on parliament and the prime minister after a previous government led by the now- opposition amended the constitution and set up independent commissions to oversee the police and the judiciary, among other arms of the government.  “We have seen in the past when governments have had a two-thirds majority (they do) not have to worry about checks and balances,” historian and political scientist Jayadeva Uyangoda said. “In fact they have untrammelled power, that is what we have observed in both India and Sri Lanka. In the past in Sri Lanka, the governments which had this level of power in 1970 and thereafter in 1977 generated a lot of social discontent.” Veteran journalist and political commentator Victor Ivan anticipates a power struggle between the brothers, who are known for stamping out the Tamil Tigers insurgency for a separate homeland for the Hindu minority during the elder Rajapaksa’s presidency in 2009, ending a 25-year civil war. “The president wants to change the constitution to take back the power to the presidency,” Ivan said.  “In this situation either the elder brother must step aside and cede power to the younger brother, or the younger man must take a step back and allow the older brother to exercise power.” Sri Lanka’s economy contracted by 1.6% in the first quarter of 2020 as Covid-19 restrictions battered a country still recovering from last year’s Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed 269 people and paralysed the tourism industry.  Capital Economics expects the Indian Ocean nation’s economy to shrink 4% this year, in what would be its worst performance in more than 50 years. In a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, which is keen to check Chinese influence on its southern neighbour, Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to deepen relations between the neighbouring countries. “Sri Lanka and India are friends and relations,” the senior Rajapaksa, who had drawn his country closer to China during his presidency, said on Twitter after the call. Sri Lanka in 2017 had to cede control of its southern port of Hambantota to its Chinese financiers after struggling to repay its debt for the project. Still, Capital Economics expects Rajapaksa’s election victory to add “impetus to the president’s plans to ‘restore relations’ with China”. All in the family Sri Lanka’s all-powerful Rajapaksa family has completed its bounce back to power by winning a two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections, final results showed yesterday.  The powerful clan has held sway over the island nation’s politics for decades, as well as having a major influence in key state institutions such as the national airline and state corporations. Close relatives have also been appointed to top diplomatic posts abroad.  Here are the key members of the dynasty:     ‘The Patriarch’     Mahinda Rajapaksa, 74, is the patriarch of the family and served as prime minister in 2004 and then president from 2005 until January 2015. He was appointed prime minister a second time by his brother Gotabaya in November. Mahinda is adored by the Sinhala-Buddhist majority for crushing separatist Tamil rebels in May 2009 following a highly controversial military offensive that ended a decades-long civil war. During his rule Sri Lanka also moved closer to China, borrowing almost $7bn for infrastructure projects – many of which turned into white elephants mired in corruption.    ‘The Terminator’    Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 71, was the main lieutenant of Mahinda during his reign, holding the influential post of secretary to the ministry of defence with responsibility for day-to-day control of the armed forces and police. Dubbed “The Terminator” by his own family, he is feared by foes for his short temper. He has faced several corruption allegations, but his court cases have been frozen or withdrawn as he enjoys immunity after winning the presidency in 2019.     ‘Mr. Ten Percent’     Basil Rajapaksa, 69, is a political strategist who managed the economy under Mahinda.  He was called “Mr. Ten Percent” in a BBC interview in reference to commissions he allegedly took from government contracts. Subsequent administrations failed to prove any charges he siphoned off millions of dollars from state coffers, but he still faces several prosecutions for corruption and unexplained wealth. As a dual US-Sri Lankan citizen, he was prohibited from standing for elected office but is currently a senior adviser to the government.    ‘The Bodyguard’     Chamal Rajapaksa, 77, was speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament when brother Mahinda was president and is also a former minister of shipping and aviation. Formerly a police officer, he once served as a personal bodyguard to Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the world’s first woman prime minister. He is expected to continue to serve in the prime minister’s cabinet in the new government to be formed after the polls.    The Scion     Namal Rajapaksa, 34, a lawyer, is the scion of the family dynasty and the eldest son of Mahinda. He entered parliament in 2010 aged just 24. During his father’s decade in power, Namal was highly influential although he did not hold any portfolio. The former administration accused him of money laundering and other charges, for which he still faces trial. He is expected to play a key role in the new government, and observers say Mahinda is grooming him to become a future president.

Sri Lankans shrugged off fears of the novel coronavirus and streamed into polling centres yesterday to elect a new parliament that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa hopes will clear the way for him to boost his powers.  The tourism-dependent island nation of 21mn people has been struggling since deadly militant attacks on hotels and churches last year followed by lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Rajapaksa is seeking a two-thirds majority for his party in the 225-seat parliament to enable constitutional reforms to make the presidency more powerful so he can implement his economic and national security agenda. Voters, who wore masks and kept one metre apart, seemed keen to have their say with a third of the electorate casting ballots in the first four hours, the Election Commission said.  “If they come at this rate we should get between 65 and 70%, which is good given the Covid situation,” said top Election Commission official Saman Sri Rathnayake. Sri Lanka had reported 2,828 cases of the coronavirus and 11 deaths as of Tuesday, which is small compared with other South Asian countries. Election officials wore transparent face shields while medical personnel were deployed to ensure voters abided by rules to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. “The polling station is safer than the beach, the restaurant and the marketplace,” said the chairman of the Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya. Rajapaksa won the presidency last November vowing to restore relations with China, which had been strained by disputes over some Chinese investments. He is hoping to install his older brother who is also a former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, as prime minister. The brothers built their political careers as nationalist champions of the majority Sinhalese, Buddhist community. They are best known for crushing ethnic minority Tamil separatist insurgents who battled for decades for a homeland in the island’s north and east. The 26-year civil war ended in 2009 when the elder Rajapaksa was president amid allegations of torture and killings of civilians in the final stages of the conflict. Since then, governments led by the brothers’ opponents have sought to reduce the power of the president to prevent abuses and instead strengthen independent commissions appointed by parliament. But Rajapaksa said he has felt hobbled since he took over as president. “I need power to implement my economic programme which you voted for,” he told supporters last week. The opposition led by Sajith Premadasa, son of assassinated president Ranasinghe Premadasa, has warned of the risk of autocracy if the presidency is invested with more powers. Votes are to be counted today and the results should be known later in the day.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa hopes to tighten his hold on the nation’s fractious politics in an election tomorrow that could elevate his brother and allow the two to change the constitution if they prevail.  Rajapaksa, who claims credit for controlling the spread of the new coronavirus in the island nation, hopes to install his elder brother and former president - current caretaker Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa - in the post formally with an outright election victory. Voters in the tiny Indian Ocean nation of 21mn people will wear masks, carry their own pens to mark ballot papers and maintain physical distancing for the parliamentary polling that has twice been postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Votes will be counted on Thursday. Sri Lanka has reported 2,816 infections of the new coronavirus and 11 Covid-19 deaths as of Sunday. The totals are lower than in neighbouring south Asian countries, held in check by a strict lockdown since March. “We will make it safe for you to vote,” said chief election commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya, urging people to vote without fear. The Rajapaksa brothers, who built their political careers as Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists, are best known for crushing Tamil separatists fighting for a separate homeland for their ethnic minority. The 26-year civil war ended under the elder Rajapaksa’s presidency. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who won the presidency in November, is not up for re-election in the parliamentary polls. Given the support the brothers enjoy among the Sinhalese majority, Mahinda is favoured to become prime minister over Sajith Premadasa, analysts say. Sri Lanka does not have a tradition of conducting political opinion polls. The opposition candidate is the son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was assassinated while president by a Tamil suicide bomber in 1993. The Rajapaksas want to return to the presidency powers that were diluted by previous governments as part of reforms to prevent abuses of power. “The majority community in Sri Lanka have (shown) that they have already decided they want the Rajapaksas back by voting Gotabaya Rajapaksa into the presidency,” said Jayadeva Uyangoda, an independent political commentator. The question, he said, is whether they will get a big majority to make sweeping changes. The reforms created independent bodies, including judicial, human rights and police commissions to exercise powers that had been concentrated in the president. President Rajapaksa says he cannot implement his agenda of economic growth because of the curbs on his power. “It is impossible to make any meaningful changes and implement the agenda that I presented to the people,” he said last week. Restoring those powers would require amending the constitution, which in turn requires a two-thirds majority in parliament.

A cat detained at Sri Lanka's main prison while allegedly trying to smuggle drugs and cell phone SIM cards has escaped, media reports said Monday. The feline was detected by jail intelligence officials on Saturday at the high-security Welikada Prison, a police official said. He said nearly two grams of heroin, two SIM cards and a memory chip were found in a small plastic bag tied around the cat's neck. But it escaped on Sunday from a prison room where it was kept, the Aruna newspaper said. There was no immediate comment from prison authorities. The prison had reported an increase in incidents of people throwing small packets of drugs, cell phones and phone chargers over the walls in recent weeks. Sri Lanka is battling a major drug problem with some anti-narcotics detectives also implicated in selling confiscated drugs. Police last week seized an eagle allegedly used by drug traffickers to distribute narcotics in a suburb of Colombo.

Sri Lanka batsman Kusal Mendis was arrested Sunday after being allegedly involved in a fatal crash with a cyclist, who died instantly, just outside the country's capital Colombo, police said. The 25-year-old batsman was driving an SUV at Panadura before dawn when the incident happened, police said. Mendis has been named in the 16-player squad for a two-match home Test series against England in March, but the tour was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 3,000 people are killed annually in traffic accidents in Sri Lanka. A former spin bowler, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, was given a four-year suspended jail sentence for crashing into a woman pedestrian and killing her in 2003.

Sri Lanka's nationwide lockdown was lifted Sunday after a selective curfew a month ago was reimposed during a surge in coronavirus infections, the country's president said. The island nation imposed the lockdown on March 20 and lifted it gradually over the past two months, although a nighttime curfew remained in place. It reintroduced tighter restrictions in late May and early June to curb large gatherings for the funeral of a popular government minister and for a religious festival. ‘The curfew has completely been lifted effective from today,’ President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office said in a statement. Health officials said new infections reported since April 30 were from Sri Lankans stranded in the Middle East who were brought home on special flights and quarantined. A cluster in a navy camp was controlled with the facility still in lock down, they said. ‘There has been no community spread of the virus and the infections at the Welisara navy camp are now contained,’ a health official told AFP. Air and sea borders remained closed, with international flights suspended. Authorities plan to reopen Sri Lanka's borders on August 1, but the date could be reviewed due to the imported cases, the official added. Sri Lanka will also hold its parliamentary elections at the start of August after they were postponed due to the pandemic. Around 2,000 infections including 11 deaths have been recorded in the South Asian nation so far, according to government figures.

Sri Lanka’s Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) is planning to launch a long-awaited multi-million-dollar global tourism promotion campaign in January 2021 if tourism does not bounce back to the pre-Covid level in two years, local media reported. Currently, the final terms of references (TOR) of the five-year campaign are being reviewed by an appointed Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC), which is likely to be completed this month, the Mirror Business quoted the SLTPB as saying. “Our aim is to finish the procurement process by December and to kick off the campaign by January,” a top SLTPB official told the newspaper. Initially, the SLTPB plans to float 11 tenders, including three local tenders, to select a creative agency, a social media agency and a campaign-monitoring unit for the five years, Xinhua news agency reported. Eight international tenders would be invited to select agencies for destination  representation. Despite the Covid-19-induced crisis, Sri Lanka’s tourism authorities are maintaining their midterm target to achieve revenue of $10bn from tourism by 2025.

Sri Lanka staged a mock election yesterday to test measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus during a parliamentary vote in August. The poll was due to be held on April 25 but was put off and then postponed indefinitely due to the epidemic, which official figures show has infected nearly 2,000 people and killed 11. The election commission said Wednesday the vote would be held on August 5.  The island nation of 21mn people has steadily lifted its lockdown restrictions, although a night curfew remains. The new health measures - to be implemented at polling booths and counting centres - were trialled in four of the 22 electoral districts, commission chairman Mahinda Deshapriya told reporters. “We were very pleased to see that all those who volunteered to take part in this exercise today wore face masks,” he said. “Officials and polling agents will be behind clear plastic screens or wear face shields. We have also ensured that voters will stand a metre apart when they queue up.” Voters will also be required to bring their own pen or pencil to mark ballot papers. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who won a landslide at November’s presidential polls, has been hoping the parliamentary vote would secure his party a two-thirds majority and give him sweeping powers to govern the nation.

Sri Lanka’s police yesterday dispersed a rally in the capital organised to show solidarity with those protesting worldwide over the death of George Floyd in the United States, officials said. At least 42 protestors were taken into custody, while the others were baton-charged and dispersed from near the US embassy in the capital and another location in Colombo. “Solidarity with US protestors,” “Silence is a crime. Raise your voice,” “Stop state terrorism in US,” and “Justice for Floyd” were among the slogans written on placards carried by the protestors outside the US embassy.  A political party known as the Frontline Socialist Party led the protest, which attracted some 300 supporters despite a court order not to go ahead with the campaign. The courts had banned the protest on the grounds that it was a threat to people’s health and could lead to the spread of the coronavirus, as crowds would gather in close proximity for the event. A heavy police guard was stationed outside the US embassy and the riot squad was deployed. Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa held US citizenship until he decided to stand in last year’s presidential elections.  Sri Lanka only fully re-opened its public transportation network across the country on Monday, after 12 weeks of restrictions due to Covid-19. A five-hour curfew at night remains in place.