Colombo, Jul 19 : Unlike the previous Rajapaksa regime, the current Sri Lankan government will not follow the policy of confrontation with the UN over the human rights violations committed during the three-decade long civil war, government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said today.
Senaratne, who is also the Health Minister, was responding after Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe severely criticised the conclusions made by United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson at the end of his four-day visit last week.
“We are aware how the former government was sidelined by the international community as a result of its policy of clashing with the UN. We will not follow the same policy,” Senaratne said.
He said the government’s policy will be diplomatic engagement and not clashes with the UN.
Rajapakshe told Emmerson that he had been misinformed on the situation and that government would not cooperate with the UN rapporteur.
The UN Rapporteurs were not welcomed during former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s time who even failed to cooperate with the UN Human Rights Council resolutions passed against Sri Lanka.
Senaratne was asked about President Maithripala Sirisena’s reported unhappiness about Emmerson’s meeting the Tamil prisoners arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) during his visit.
He said Sirisena had raised concerns on the fact that the Ministry of Defence which he holds had not been kept informed on Emmerson’s meeting the Tamil prisoners.
Emmerson criticised Sri Lanka’s slow progress to address key human rights related issues. He even dubbed Sri Lanka as among one of the world’s worst countries for torture in custody.
Emmerson said that Sri Lanka’s transitional justice commitments were inadequate to ensure real progress, and there was little evidence that perpetrators of war crimes committed by members of the Sri Lankan armed forces were being brought to justice.
According to UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by security forces during Rajapaksa’s regime that brought an end to the brutal civil war with with the defeat of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.
Washington, Jul 19: The Trump administration has announced a one-time increase of 15,000 additional H-2B visas for low-wage foreign workers after determining that the needs of US businesses cannot be satisfied with Americans willing and qualified to do the work.
This is being done in the best interest of the businesses, Trump Administration has argued.
US businesses in danger of suffering irreparable harm due to a lack of available temporary nonagricultural workers will be able to hire up to 15,000 additional temporary nonagricultural workers under the H-2B programme, the Department of Homeland Security said yesterday.
To qualify for the additional visas, petitioners must attest, under penalty of perjury, that their business is likely to suffer irreparable harm if it cannot employ H-2B nonimmigrant workers during fiscal year (FY) 2017.
H-2B visas are mostly for foreign farm workers. US businesses hire people from Latin American countries.
H-1B visas, which are the most sought after by Indian IT professionals, is for highly-skilled persons. H-1B has a Congressional cap of 65,000 visas.
The Trump administration is currently reviewing its H-1B policy.
Most of the American businesses, in particularly, those in the Silicon Valley say that there is a huge shortage of highly skilled people in the US and have been urging the Trump administration to increase the visa cap. The Trump administration has not come out with its policy on H1B visas yet.
But unlike H-2B visas, there is no provision to increase the visa cap of H-1B work visas.
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday said that it arrived at the decision on increasing H-2B cap after consulting with Secretary of Labour Alexander Acosta.
Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly determined there are not enough qualified and willing US workers available to perform temporary nonagricultural labour to satisfy the needs of some American businesses in FY 2017.
H-2B Temporary Nonagricultural Worker program was designed to serve US businesses unable to find a sufficient number of qualified US workers to perform nonagricultural work of a temporary nature.
Congress has set the annual H-2B cap at 66,000.
A maximum of 33,000 H-2B visas are available during the first half of the fiscal year, and the remainder, including any unused H-2B visas, is available starting April 1 through September 30.
The Income Tax Department has identified another 5.56 lakh individuals whose tax profiles are found inconsistent with the money deposited by them post demonetization.
In the second phase of ‘Operation Clean Money’ launched in April with an aim to detect black money generation post demonetization, the I-T department has used information received under the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) from banks to identify additional cases. “These are persons whose tax profiles were found to be inconsistent with the cash deposits made by them during the demonetization period,” a finance ministry statement said.
All identified persons are being informed through email and SMS for submitting their response online, it added. Another 1.04 lakh persons who did not disclose all bank accounts during e-verification in the first phase of operation clean money have also been identified. In the first phase of Operation Clean Money launched on January 31, 17.92 lakh persons had been identified for e- verification of large cash deposits, of which 9.72 lakh people had submitted online response.
At the time of launch of the second phase of Operation Clean Money, the I-T department had said it will investigate over 60,000 individuals, including 1,300 high risk persons. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), policy-making body of the department, had then said it has detected undisclosed income over Rs 9,334 crore between November 9, 2016 and February 28, 2017. The information in respect of the cases and accounts identified has been made available in the e-filing window of the PAN holder in the e-filing portal of the I-T department.
The PAN holder can view the information using the link ‘Cash Transactions 2016’ under ‘Compliance’ section of the portal. The taxpayer will be able to submit online explanation without any need to visit income tax office. The tax department had in April notified the new ITR forms which added a new column seeking information on cash deposits above Rs 2 lakh made during the 50-day demonetisation period.
This information will be matched with the information in possession of the I-T department. “The taxpayer should ensure that ITR is compliant with amount deposited in bank accounts during the period of demonetization and while computing income, the amounts so deposited are considered/ taken into account while paying taxes,” the statement said. Cash deposits made in the above period may thus be fully and truly disclosed in the ITR, it added.
Chandigarh, Jul 14 : The Punjab government today gave in-principle nod for allotment of about 10 acre land at village Dhaulkalan in Amritsar district to set up the centrally-sponsored Post Graduate Institute of Excellence in Horticulture.
This was disclosed by an official spokesperson after a meeting of the Horticulture Department chaired by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, to identify and finalise the land for the proposed institute which had been announced by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
The land that has been identified is located between Guru Nanak Dev University and Ram Tirath, the Horticulture Department informed the meeting.
An official spokesperson said that another 100 acre had been identified at Attari in December 2015 for horticulture research.
The additional land now identified for allotment would be used to develop the educational institute.
To be established by the Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) in collaboration with the Punjab government, the institute will help boost crop diversification — a key agenda of Captain Amarinder — who has been proactively promoting this as a means for bolstering farmer income and permanently resolving the state s agrarian crisis, he said.
Captain Amarinder has directed Additional Chief Secretary (Horticulture) Himmat Singh to share details of the land with ICAR authorities and has also asked him to invite an ICAR team to inspect the site.
He also instructed the Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, to get all other requisite formalities/permissions cleared for handing over immediate possession of the land to ICAR so that the project can be started at the earliest.
With farmers caught in a vicious wheat-paddy cycle and trapped by mounting debts, the state government is pursuing crop diversification, including horticulture, as a means for creating a new agricultural ecosystem, he said.
London, Jul 13 : The “ladies and gentlemen” greeting on the London Underground will be scrapped to become more gender-neutral, Transport for London (TfL) announced today.
TfL said the move was to ensure all passengers felt “welcome”.
Staff of London Underground have been told to say “hello everyone” in an effort to become more gender-neutral, the BBC reported.
The revised phrasing will be applied to all new pre- recorded announcements made across the British capital’s transport network.
Mark Evers, director of customer strategy at TfL, said: “We want everyone to feel welcome on our transport network.
“We have reviewed the language that we use in announcements and elsewhere and will make sure that it is fully inclusive, reflecting the great diversity of London.”
The London Underground is a public rapid transit system serving London and some parts of the adjacent counties.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was “keen” TfL speak in a “more neutral way”.
He said: “TfL serves a vibrant, diverse and multicultural city, and provision of an inclusive transport service is at the heart of TfL’s purpose.
TfL said it had briefed staff on use of the new language “though from time-to-time, well-meaning staff may still use the term ‘ladies and gentlemen”.”
“If this happens frequently, we will issue reminders to staff,” it added.
LGBT campaign group Stonewall welcomed the decision.
Stonewall said: “Language is extremely important to the lesbian, gay, bi and trans community, and the way we use it can help ensure all people feel included.
“We welcome gender neutral announcements to be rolled out across TfL as it will ensure that everyone – no matter who they identify as – feels accounted for,” it added.
New Delhi, Jul 13 : A team of Indian astronomers has discovered an extremely large supercluster of galaxies — as big as 20 million billion suns — which they have named Saraswati, Pune-based Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) said today.
This is one of the largest known structures in the neighbourhood of the universe, 4,000 million light-years away from Earth and roughly more than 10 billion years old, IUCAA said.
Its mass extends over the scale of 600 million light years, it said.
Scientists of this institute were also involved in the path-breaking discovery of gravitational waves last year.
The supercluster was discovered by Shishir Sankhyayan, a PhD student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, Pratik Dabhade, IUCAA research fellow, Joe Jacob of the Newman College, Kerala, and Prakash Sarkar of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur.
Their findings were published in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal, the premier research journal of the American Astronomical Society.
“Superclusters are the largest coherent structures in the cosmic web. They are a chain of galaxies and galaxy clusters, bound by gravity, often stretching to several hundred times the size of clusters of galaxies, consisting of tens of thousands of galaxies,” the IUCAA said in a statement.
Sankhyayan said this “newly-discovered Saraswati supercluster” extends over a scale of 600 million light-years and may contain the mass equivalent of over 20 million billion suns.
A cluster could roughly have galaxies ranging from 1000 to 10,000. A supercluster could have clusters ranging from 40 to 43, he added.
“Our own galaxy is part of a supercluster called the Laniakea supercluster,” the IUCAA said.
Joydeep Bagchi from IUCAA, the lead author of the paper in the journal, and co-author Sankhyayan said they were “astonished to spot this giant wall-like supercluster of galaxies”, visible in a large spectroscopic survey of distant galaxies, known as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Sankhyayan said the data was then analysed, following which the discovery was made.
“This supercluster is clearly embedded in a large network of cosmic filaments traced by clusters and large voids,” Bagchi said.
He said previously “only a few comparatively large superclusters” had been reported, such as the Shapley Concentration or the Sloan Great Wall in the nearby universe.
“The Saraswati supercluster is far more distant,” Bagchi said.
The two hoped that the work would help shed light on “perplexing questions” like how such matter-density clusters had been formed billions of years ago.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters on Tuesday that it had “confirmed information” that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said in June that it might have killed Baghdadi when one of its air strikes hit a gathering of Islamic State commanders on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials have been sceptical. Reuters could not independently verify Baghdadi’s death.
“(We have) confirmed information from leaders, including one of the first rank, in the Islamic State in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zor,” the director of the British-based war monitoring group Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.
Baghdadi’s death had been announced many times before but the Observatory has a track record of credible reporting on Syria’s civil war. Abdulrahman said Observatory sources in Syria’s eastern town of Deir al-Zor had been told by Islamic State sources that Baghdadi had died “but they did not specify when”.
Iraqi and Kurdish officials did not confirm his death. The U.S. Department of Defence said it had no immediate information corroborate Baghdadi’s death. Islamic State-affiliated websites and social media feeds have not carried any news regarding the leader’s possible death. The death of Baghdadi, who declared a caliphate from a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014, would be one of the biggest blows yet to the jihadist group, which is trying to defend shrinking territory in Syria and Iraq.
Bhubaneshwar, Jul 10 : In a stunning show of dominance, India clinched five gold to top the medal tally for first time in the history of Asian Athletics Championships, pushing China to second spot, in their most successful campaign in the continental flagship event here today.
With today’s 5 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze, India ended the four-day championships on top with their highest ever medal haul of 29 medals (12 gold, 5 silver and 12 bronze).
India’s best came way back in the 1985 Jakarta edition where they had won 22 medals (10 gold, 5 silver, 7 bronze).
China ended this edition on second position with 8 gold, 7 silver and 5 bronze. They won 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze today.
Japan topped the medal tally in the first five editions of the Asian championships from 1973 to 1981. China’s domination began from 1983 at Kuwait City and continued till the previous edition at their home venue in Wuhan two years ago.
India snapped China’s monopoly this time though their northern neighbours had fielded only a second string team here as their athletes are reserving their best for the upcoming World championships in London next month.
The host country, however, suffered a huge setback after 800m runner Archana Yadav was disqualified, after being initially declared as the gold medal winner, for pushing Sri Lankan rival Nimali Waliwarsha Konda from behind near the finishing line. The gold medal was then awarded to Konda and India thus lost a yellow metal in dramatic circumstances.
Despite this setback, the Sunday crowd at the Kalinga Stadium were on the edge of their seats as the Indians dished out a superb performance.
It was heptathlete Swapna Barman who gave India the first gold of the day (as Archana was qualified) as she collected a total of 5942 points from the seven events.
The 20-year-old from Bengal collapsed just after crossing the 800m race, the last of the seven events, and was taken for immediate medical attention.
Japan’s Meg Hemphill was second with 5883 points while another Indian Purnima Hembram was third with 5798 points.
After that Lakhsmanan Govinda took the centrestage as he grabbed his second gold of the championship by winning the men’s 10,000m event in 29 minute and 55.87 seconds. Another Indian Gopi Thonkanal was second in 29:58.89.
World junior record holder javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra struggled in his initial attempts but got his touch in time to clinch the gold with a final throw of 85.23m. Devinder Singh, who was embroiled in a marijuana positive test case, was third by clearing a distance of 83.29m.
India fittingly wrapped up the championships by winning gold in the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay races to send the packed crowd to wild celebrations, knowing fully well that it was a historic moment with the host country topping the medal tally for the first time.
The men’s quartet of Kunhu Muhammad, Muhammad Anas, Rajiv Arokia and Amoj Jacob clocked 3 minute 2.92 seconds to win the race while the women’s team of Nirmala Sheoran, M Povamma, Jisna Mathew and Debashree Mazumdar clocked 3:31.34 to ran away winners.
Jinson Johnson in men’s 800m and Purnima Hembram in women’s heptathlon won a bronze each.
Caracas, Jul 10 : Venezuela hit its 100th day of anti-government protests today, one day after its most prominent political prisoner, Leopoldo Lopez, vowed to continue his fight for freedom after being released from jail and placed under house arrest.
Lopez’s surprise prison release triggered speculation over the prospect of negotiations between the opposition and Venezuela’s embattled leftist government of Nicolas Maduro, with a rising toll of death and destruction from three months of non-stop street protests.
Lopez, leader of the Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party and a symbol of resistance to the Maduro government, emerged hours after his release from prison looking fit and happy.
He pumped his fist in the air, unfurled the Venezuelan flag and told a crowd of supporters who had gathered outside: “Yes, we can!”
“I maintain my firm opposition to this regime,” Lopez said in a statement read by a leader of his party. “I reiterate my commitment to fight until conquering Venezuela’s freedom.”
President Maduro, in televised remarks later Saturday, called for a message of “peace and rectification” from Lopez.
Maduro said he hoped the statement from Lopez could provide the basis for reconciliation “because the nation wants peace.”
Lopez, a 46-year-old Harvard-trained politician, was held for more than three-and-a-half years in a military prison outside Caracas for allegedly “inciting violence” by calling for anti-government protests.
His release has been a key demand of Venezuela’s opposition and the international community, amid an intensifying political confrontation aimed at forcing the unpopular Maduro to hold early elections.
Attorney General Luisa Ortega — the most senior figure to defy Maduro — accused the government of using Lopez to “improve its image.”
“People deprived of liberty cannot be used as if they were hostages that can be objects of negotiation,” she told the Chilean daily newspaper La Tercera.
At least 91 people have died since April 1 in clashes between protesters and security forces over moves by the courts and the government to strip the National Assembly of power, delay elections and rewrite the constitution.
The Supreme Court said it had ordered Lopez’s move to house arrest for health reasons, calling it a “humanitarian measure.”
In Madrid, Javier Cremades, Lopez’s Spanish lawyer, underscored that “all of Leopoldo Lopez’s civil and political rights must still be restored.”
“What’s more, there are still 300 political prisoners in the Bolivarian jails,” he added.
Foro Penal, an NGO, puts the number of political prisoners in Venezuela at 433. The government insists they are in jail for acts of violence.
The US State Department called the release of Lopez “a significant step in the right direction” — but said many more such steps are needed.
The former mayor of a Caracas municipality, Lopez was an early champion of street protests to force political change in Venezuela as the oil-rich country spiraled into a severe economic and political crisis after the death of Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
The government blamed Lopez for a months-long outbreak of anti-government protests in 2014 that left 43 people dead in clashes with security forces.
He was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison on charges that his defense said were politically motivated and based on “manipulated” evidence.
Since then the crisis has deepened, with more deaths and increasing levels of violence.
On Wednesday, pro-government militants wielding sticks and pipes stormed the grounds of the opposition-held National Assembly and beat lawmakers, injuring at least five at the only state institution that the opposition nominally controls.
Maduro condemned the violence and said he had ordered an investigation.