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In a special statement today, Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera stated that the constitutional coup triggered by the President Maithripala Sirisena last night (26), is  unconstitutional and anti-democratic.  

Samaraweera reiterated that the majority of the government, including all constituent parties of the United National Front, stand with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Asian Development Bank has announced a grant and loan package worth US$ 50m to support Sri Lanka’s health care system.

Sri Lanka has seen a decline in polio, malaria and filariasis in the past two decades but there has been a rise in non-communicable diseases such as cancer and heart disease, driven by lifestyle changes.

This is putting more pressure on the country’s health system.

The package will help Sir Lanka provide more responsive health services to provinces that are under-served and also strengthen skills within the sector.

Brian Chin, ADB social sector specialist, said: “Sri Lanka has made impressive gains in ensuring access to and quality of health services for all.

“But challenges remain, including a dramatic increase in non-communicable diseases, which are causing a surge in demand for health services and rises in costs.”

The project will upgrade 135 medical care units and divisional hospitals in four provinces, providing new equipment, emergency treatment, dental and other clinical services.

It will also refurbish 127 field health centres and provide equipment and staff training.

The total cost of the project is US$ 60m of which the ADB is providing a grant of US$ 12.5m and a concessional loan of US$ 37.5m.

The government is putting US$10m towards the total cost of the project, which is due for completion at the end of November 2023.

The European Union called all parties concerned to act in accordance with Sri Lanka's constitution while following due institutional process. 

"The Ambassador of the European Union as well as the Ambassadors of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and the UK High Commissioner are closely following the events as they are unfolding in Sri Lanka. We urge all parties to fully act in accordance with Sri Lanka’s constitution, to refrain from violence, to follow due institutional process, to respect the independence of institutions, and freedom of media", the statement released by EU said.

Facebook has said its moderators have removed 8.7 million child abuse images in the past three months, as the company battles pressure from regulators and lawmakers worldwide to speed up removal of illicit material.

It said on Wednesday that previously undisclosed software automatically flags images that contain both nudity and a child, helping its reviewers. A similar machine learning tool was also revealed that it said caught users engaged in “grooming” of minors for sexual exploitation.

Facebook has vowed to speed up removal of extremist and illicit material, and machine learning programs that sift through the billions of pieces of content users post each day are essential to its plan.

Facebook’s global head of safety Antigone Davis told Reuters in an interview the “machine helps us prioritise” and “more efficiently queue” problematic content for its reviewers.

The company is exploring applying the same technology to its Instagram app.

Machine learning is imperfect, and news agencies and advertisers are among those that have complained this year about Facebook’s automated systems wrongly blocking their posts.

Davis said the child safety systems would make mistakes but users could appeal. “We’d rather err on the side of caution with children,” she said.

Before the new software, Facebook relied on users or its adult nudity filters to catch such images. A separate system blocks child abuse that has previously been reported to authorities.

Facebook has not previously disclosed data on child nudity removals, though some would have been counted among the 21m posts and comments it removed in the first quarter for sexual activity and adult nudity.

Shares of Facebook fell 5% on Wednesday.

Facebook said the program, which learned from its collection of nude adult photos and clothed children photos, had led to more removals.

In some cases, the system has caused outrage, such as when it censored the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked girl fleeing a Vietnam war napalm attack.

The child grooming system evaluates factors such as how many people have blocked a particular user and whether that user quickly attempts to contact many children, Davis said.

Michelle DeLaune, chief operating officer at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), said it expected to receive about 16m child abuse tipoffs worldwide this year from Facebook and other tech companies, up from 10m last year. With the increase, NCMEC said it was working with Facebook to develop software to decide which tips to assess first.

DeLaune acknowledged that a crucial blind spot was encrypted chat apps and secretive “dark web” sites where most new child abuse images originate.

Encryption of messages on Facebook-owned WhatsApp, for example, prevents machine learning from analysing them. DeLaune said NCMEC would educate tech companies and “hope they use creativity” to address the issue.

A group of parliamentarians from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party is preparing to defeat the constitutional coup by aligning themselves with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, sources within the SLFP said today.

It is also learnt that four parliamentarians have already pledged their support to Wickremesinghe. 

It is reported that certain SLFP parliamentarians, who were blindsided by President Maithripala Sirisena’s anti-democratic actions, are willing to defect as a show of dissent.

Hundreds of estate workers protested in Colombo yesterday to demand a wage revision. 

The protesters, carrying placards and shouting slogans, had gathered at Galle face grounds and later blocked a few roads in the city to press for their demands. The workers coming from Nuwara Eliya, Badulla and several other estates are demanding that their basic daily wage be increased from existing LKR 530 to LKR 1,000. 

The estate owners union had agreed to increase the daily pay to LKR 900 which was rejected by the workers union.

Earlier, the protests were held in several parts of Central and Uva provinces where most of the tea estates are located. 

Minister of Plantation Industries Navin Dissanayake has said that the cost of production, productivity and profitability does not justify the demand.

However, ministers representing the workers have supported the demand and called for government intervention to solve the problem. 

Most of the tea estate workers are Tamils of Indian origin, who were settled by the British in the early twentieth century.

Ravi Karunanayake has said that he would not quit the UNP at a time when the party is being challenged, even though the UNP has not given him the due place he deserves as the assistant leader of party. 

Karunanayake made these remarks when he met some of his closest supporters this morning (27). 

However, It is also reported that Karunanayake will not compromise on his principles with regard to the protection of democracy, something which he has stood by throughout his political career, and that he will not support the constitutional coup.

Sri Lankan police arrested and charged a senior naval officer on Wednesday (24) for the abduction and murder of two Tamil businessmen during the final stages of the island's brutal civil war.

Lieutenant Commander K. A. Dayananda was taken before a magistrate and remanded in custody over the double murder, which investigators believe took place in January 2009.

Police said the victims, both from the Tamil minority group, were kidnapped by naval officers and later killed despite their families paying a ransom for their release. (Photo: AFP/Ishara S. KODIKARA)

"The vehicle of the two victims was taken to Welisara navy camp on the pretext that it contained a bomb," a police official told AFP.
"Later, they dismantled the vehicle and sold the parts after having killed the two men."

Sri Lanka is investigating the disappearance and presumed murder of 11 young men between 2008 and 2009 in the dying days of the 37-year civil war between government forces and Tamil separatists.

Several navy officers are currently on bail in connection with the alleged disappearances. The missing men are believed to have been murdered before the brutal conflict ended in 2009.

Senior military figures and close associates of former strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse have been accused of murders, cover-ups and extortion during his decade of rule.

Several intelligence officers have also been released on bail for charges related to the assassination of a prominent newspaper editor and attacks on other journalists and dissidents.

The January 2009 killing of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga, a fierce critic of then-president Rajapaksa, sparked international outcry and shone a light on human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

Wickrematunga had accused Rajapaksa's defence secretary and brother Gotabhaya of taking kickbacks in arms purchases, and was due to testify in court when he was murdered.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has denied running death squads.

The Rajapaksas are under investigation for large-scale financial fraud and murder during Mahinda's presidency, which ended in 2015.

Source: AFP/nc

The anti-democratic constitutional coup has failed, Minister of Finance and Media Mangala Samaraweera said today.

Samaraweera reiterated that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has the backing of more than 113 Members thereby by securing the majority in Parliament.

He further said that the vast majority of the UNP MPs along with the constituent parties of the United National Front has pledged to support Premier Wickremesinghe.

Samaraweera added that they are ready to show the majority as soon as Speaker Karu Jayasuriya convenes Parliament.

An Indian national arrested for possible links to an alleged plot to assassinate Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has told a court that he is innocent saying the police are trying to frame him in the case.

Marceli Thomas appeared in court before the Colombo Fort magistrate on Tuesday.

Thomas said in a written statement that he is innocent but the Sri Lankan police's criminal investigation department was trying to implicate him in the plot. He said he had been under detention for 34 days and as a result his health had deteriorated. 

Thomas was arrested late last month following a complaint by Namal Kumara, who claimed he was representing the Anti-Corruption Force, and who had alleged a plot to assassinate Sirisena and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the former top defence ministry bureaucrat and brother of ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

Kumara also claimed that the senior police officer in charge of the police's counter terrorism division Nalaka Silva had masterminded the plot. Silva has since been interdicted and questioned extensively by the police CID. 

The court was also told that voice tapes provided by Kumara and Silva connected to the alleged plot have been verified by the government as carrying their voices. 

Last week, it was reported that Sirisena had accused his senior coalition partner, the United National Party (UNP), of not taking seriously an alleged conspiracy to kill him and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. A Sri Lankan minister, who declined to be named, had claimed that the president had said India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was behind the plot. 

The Sri Lankan foreign ministry later termed the reports as "baseless and false".

Sirisena also called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and categorically rejected the media reports that he had accused the RAW of plotting his assassination as "utterly baseless and false".
(OneIndia)

Sri Lanka’s Women in Need organization and BBDO have partnered on a campaign designed to call attention to the major problem with sexual harassment on public transportation there.

According to a study by UNFPA quoted in the campaign, “a staggering 90% of women have been subjected to sexual harassment on buses and trains” – while only 4% report it.

This has given rise the Women in Need launching the ‘2six4’ app that helps women contact their friends and the police when confronted with a problem.

The app allows women in when to send out a message to selected contacts while also connecting them to local law enforcement with just the click of a button.

As part of the campaign they collaborated with a famous local Viridu singer, Suranga Kavee and created a song that carries a strong message for predators lurking in buses and trains. It also encouraged bystanders to come forward and help. Viridu is a popular style of music that takes narrative poetry and storytelling and puts it to music.

To further add impact to the message, Suranga and other Viridu singers performed the song live on buses and trains – belting out lyrics such as “Let’s stop harassment and protect our women.”

“Using Viridu as a medium we spread awareness about the issue and also gave people a solution in the form of an app, at their fingertips,” said a release.

In addition to the musical front, the campaign also sought to address the lack of legal protection in the country by initiating a petition aimed at the minister of transport to create stronger laws to fight the injustices committed against women on a daily basis.

Credits

Advertising Agency: BBDO Lanka, Sri Lanka

Managing Director: Santosh Menon

Creative Chairperson: Ruchi Sharma

Senior Art Director:Rogger  Kenneth Schales

Acd: Gihan Rodrigo, Chanuka Wijayasinghe

Agency Producer: Laungston Costa

Viridu Singer: Suranga Kavee

Senior Creative: Ameya Mone

Junior Sinhala Writer:Kasuni Chandrasena

Senior Planner:Chanithi Gunasekera

Junior Account Executive:Lambodran Ramanan

Final Artist:Sampath Chaminda

Art Director:Akila Harison

(Robert Cameroon/branding in asia)

Sri Lanka on Tuesday called for a "coalition of the willing" to help stabilise free-falling emerging market currencies around the globe, as the beleaguered rupee slumped to fresh lows.

The island's currency bottomed out at a record-low 174.12 rupees to the dollar, resisting a slew of measures by policymakers to arrest its steady decline.

The rupee has shed more than 12 percent of its value this year and Sri Lanka fears it could slide further as US sanctions squeeze Iran, the island's chief source of oil.

A stronger dollar has made it difficult for emerging markets to repay debts and battered global currencies from Turkey to India and Argentina.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera invited those nations experiencing currency crises to visit Colombo and hash out a strategy.
"The rise of the dollar is having a serious impact on our currencies. We are not the only one affected," he told reporters in the Sri Lankan capital.

"I want to build a coalition of the willing to deal with this problem. I don't see the global situation improving any time soon."

Washington pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in May and has been reimposing punishing sanctions on the Islamic republic, targeting in particular its financial system.

Iran not only supplies Sri Lanka with most of its oil, but is one of its chief buyers of the island's celebrated tea.

Samaraweera has warned that blockading Iran will have ripple on effects on Sri Lanka, which has been unable to stop the rupee from nose diving.

Last month, Colombo curbed its state institutions and public servants from importing cars to reduce the outflow of foreign capital.

Banks were also ordered to restrict lending for purchasing overseas and consumer goods, but the rupee has continued its decline.

In August, the government substantially increased taxes on small cars to discourage imports, but officials said there was still pressure on foreign exchange reserves to finance big-ticket imports. (AFP)