Sri Lanka President’s brother Basil Rajapaksa stopped at Colombo airport while trying to flee

News Network
July 12, 2022

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Colombo, July 12: Basil Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s former finance minister and younger brother of embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was turned back at Colombo airport on Tuesday as he attempted to leave the country through the VIP terminal, an immigration officer said, amid mounting anger against the powerful family for mishandling the worst economic crisis.

Basil Rajapaksa, 71, tried to leave the crisis-hit island nation, a day before Speaker of Parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena is expected to publicly announce President Rajapaksa's resignation to the nation.

President Rajapaksa signed on Monday his resignation letter, dated for July 1, and and it was later handed over to a senior government official who will hand it over to the Parliament Speaker.

Basil, a US passport holder, resigned as finance minister in early April as street protests intensified against shortages of fuel, food and other necessities and quit his seat in parliament in June.

The Sri Lanka Immigration and Emigration Officers Association said its members declined to serve Basil at the VIP terminal of Colombo airport.

"Due to the crisis situation in the country, it has been decided to withdraw from activities at the Silk Route/CIP passenger clearance activities until further notice,” the trade union said in a statement, according to Economy Next website.

"We decided to withdraw from serving the silk route passenger clearance terminal from mid night yesterday,” said K.A.S Kanugala, the chairman of the association.

He said the corrupt people were trying to leave the country using the service.

The immigration officials objected to serve him at the VIP clearance line and even the passengers of the Emirates flight to Dubai had objected to his leaving.

Basil is being widely held responsible for the country's worst economic crisis which has heaped misery on the people.

The political uncertainty prevails in Sri Lanka where the distribution of cooking gas has resumed alongside the delivery of fuel to retailers by the Indian Oil Company after a stoppage on Sunday. Long queues are still seen at fuel pumps.

The protesters continue to occupy the three main buildings in the capital, the President’s House, the presidential secretariat and the prime minister’s official residence, Temple Trees.

Police near the Temple Trees said a clash had erupted between two groups of protesters, injuring 6 people.

With President Rajapaksa’s resignation due on Wednesday, Sri Lanka's political parties on Monday initiated steps to form an all-party government and subsequently elect a new President on July 20 to prevent the bankrupt nation sliding further into anarchy.

President Rajapaksa has officially conveyed to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that he will resign on July 13 as previously announced, the PM Office said on Monday, days after protesters stormed both leaders’ homes in rage over the government's mishandling of the country's worst economic crisis.

Parties have begun campaigning for the support of possible candidates. The main opposition SJB said they will campaign for the appointment of Sajith Premadasa as the interim President.

Premadasa said on Monday that Sri Lanka’s main opposition the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) was ready to lead the country at the presidential and prime ministerial level and develop the economy.

Premadasa said his party is ready to lead a programme aimed at bringing stability to the country.

“We will appoint a government headed by a president and a prime minister. There is no other alternative. If anyone opposes this or tries to sabotage it in parliament we will see it as a treacherous act,” he said.

The Sri Lankan Parliament will elect the new president to succeed Rajapaksa on July 20, Speaker Abeywardena announced on Monday.

Under the Sri Lankan Constitution, if both the president and prime minister resign, the Speaker of parliament will serve as acting president for a maximum of 30 days.

The Parliament will elect a new president within 30 days from one of its members, who will hold the office for the remaining two years of the current term.

Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is under the grip of an unprecedented economic turmoil, the worst in seven decades, leaving millions struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and other essentials.

Schools have been suspended and fuel has been limited to essential services. Patients are unable to travel to hospitals due to the fuel shortage and food prices are soaring.

Trains have reduced in frequency, forcing travelers to squeeze into compartments and even sit precariously on top of them as they commute to work.

In several major cities, including Colombo, hundreds are forced to stand in line for hours to buy fuel, sometimes clashing with police and the military as they wait.

The country, with an acute foreign currency crisis that resulted in foreign debt default, had announced in April that it is suspending nearly USD 7 billion foreign debt repayment due for this year out of about USD 25 billion due through 2026. Sri Lanka's total foreign debt stands at USD 51 billion. 

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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News Network
November 17,2024

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An Israeli airstrike on the office of Syria’s Baath party in Lebanon’s capital Beirut has killed the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah's Media Relations Officer, Mohammad Afif, reports say.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli raid struck the Ba'ath party’s building in central Beirut district of Ras Al-Naba'a on Sunday, adding that the strike was an attempt to assassinate the leader of the resistance media front.

According to Baath Secretary-General Ali Hijazi, Afif was having a meeting in the Baath Party headquarters when Israel carried out the attack.

"Afif did not fight with weapons and did not lead a military unit in Hezbollah. Rather, he led a media unit," he said.

Reuters, Sky News, Al Jazeera and a number of Henrew-language media reported that Afif was killed in the Israeli strike.

However, Hezbollah has not yet confirmed Afif’s death or whether he was present at the site or not.

Earlier, the Lebanese Health Ministry said at least one person was killed and three others injured after an Israeli strike targeted a central district in Beirut.

Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network reported that five people were killed in the attack.

The latest development came after Afif said Hezbollah was behind the Caesarea operation and targeting Netanyahu’s home during a speech at the Ghobeiry area in the southern suburbs of Beirut on October 22.

This was the second assassination attempt on Afif in the last two months, after he survived an attack on the Hezbollah media relations office several weeks ago.

Israel launched a ground assault and massive air campaign against Lebanon in late September after a year of exchanging fire across the Lebanese border in parallel with the Gaza war.

At least 3,287 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon over the past year, with the vast majority in the past seven weeks. Another 14,222 have been wounded, mostly women and children.

In response to the ongoing aggression, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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News Network
November 22,2024

Mangaluru: A man fell victim to an online scam, losing Rs 1.7 crore after fraudsters posed as officials from TRAI. According to a complaint filed at the CEN police station, the incident began on November 11, when the complainant received a call from an unknown number at 9:49 am.

The caller, claiming to represent TRAI, alleged that another mobile number registered under the complainant's name was involved in illegal activities in Andheri (East), Mumbai. The caller further stated that an FIR was lodged against the complainant for harassment under the guise of marketing. He was instructed to contact Andheri (East) police station immediately or risk his mobile service being deactivated within two hours.

The complainant was subsequently connected to an individual named Pradeep Sawant, who claimed the complainant was implicated in a money laundering scheme linked to the Naresh Goyal fraud case. Sawant alleged that a fraudulent bank account under the complainant's name was opened at Canara Bank, Andheri, and used to purchase a SIM card for illegal activities. He warned that the complainant could face arrest.

Later, the complainant was contacted via WhatsApp video call by individuals posing as Rahul Kumar (a police officer) and Akanksha (a CBI officer). They allegedly sent fabricated CBI documents to his WhatsApp number. The fraudsters demanded money to "resolve" the case. Fearing threats, the complainant allegedly transferred Rs 1.7 crore through RTGS in batches of Rs 53 lakh, Rs 74 lakh, and Rs 44 lakh between November 13 and 19. A case has been registered at the CEN police station and an investigation is ongoing.

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