International Affairs

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Joe Biden signed executive orders Tuesday to start to dismantle former President Donald Trump’s restrictive immigration policies, including an attempt to reunite families that had been separated at the U.S.-Mexican border.

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - A Monday morning power grab by Myanmar’s military has set the country’s nascent democratic reform drive back at least a decade and will likely bolster what were already growing ties with China and Russia, analysts say.

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a number of other ruling party officials were detained Monday, a spokesperson said.

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The military government that seized power in Myanmar will get along well with its authoritarian neighbor China in the long term, despite historical misgivings, and grow closer if international sanctions isolate the Southeast Asian state from Western powers, observers say.

පසුගිය 2020 වසරේ කොවිඩ් වසංගත අර්බුධයේ ආරම්භයෙන් පසු මෙරටට පැමිණෙන ප්‍රථම රාජ්‍ය නායකයා ලෙස පකිස්තාන අගමැති ඉම්රාන් ඛාන් ලබන පෙබරවාරි 23 වනදා ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට සැපත්වීමට නියමිත බව විදේශ ලේකම් අද්මිරාල් ආචාර්ය ජයන්ත කොළඹගේ පවසයි.

Russia has expressed its willingness to allow Sri Lanka to produce its own Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V locally if the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) authorises it for local use, a senior state official said. The Sputnik V vaccine is already being manufactured in India and those two countries signed agreements last year to produce 300 million doses of the Russian vaccine in Indian laboratories.

2022 වර්ෂයේ ආසියානු සංවර්ධන බැංකුවේ 55 වන වාර්ෂික සමුළුව ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේදි පැවැත්වීමට එහි පාලක මණ්ඩලය තීරණය කර ඇත.

Sri Lanka, having faced terrorism for nearly 30 years, remains concerned by the unabated progression of terrorism in all its forms and manifestation, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Secretary to the UN Mohan Peiris said.

JERUSALEM - In the first large-scale, controlled data outside clinical trials, the two-dose Pfizer coronavirus vaccine is showing 92 percent effectiveness, according to Israeli health officials. It’s good news for Pfizer, which says the vaccine also appears to work against the British mutation of COVID-19.

නැගෙනහිර ජැටිය වෙනුවෙන් ඉන්දියාව, ජපානය සහ ශ්‍රී ලංකාව අතර 2019 මැයි අත්සන් කළ ත්‍රෛපාර්ශ්වික ගිවිසුම කඩිනමින් ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට ශ්‍රී ලංකාව පියවර ගනු ඇතැයි ඉන්දීය රජය අපේක්ෂා කරන බව කොළඹ ඉන්දීය මහකොමසාරිස් කාර්යාලය ප්‍රකාශ කරයි.

In a historic move, the UAE on Saturday announced major changes to the citizenship law, to allow for the naturalisation of foreign investors, doctors, scientists, artists and talented people and their families.

Scientists with the World Health Organization’s team investigating the source of the coronavirus that has infected more than 102 million people worldwide and killed more than 2.2 million have visited one of the hospitals in Wuhan, China, that treated some of the first patients.

Renowned Chef and Restaurateur Dharshan Munidasa, who for the past 25 years has been dedicated to promoting Japanese cuisine and cooking philosophies in Sri Lanka, has received the honorary title of “Japanese Cuisine Goodwill Ambassador” by the Japanese Government.

Sri Lanka’s head is once again on the UNHRC’s chopping block, as it has been pretty much since May 2009; but this year, the country seems a lot closer to being struck a severe blow. It is not entirely unexpected, given the Government’s decision last February to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution 30/1 and others adopted after 2015. This Resolution was co-sponsored by Sri Lanka under the previous Government.

European Union regulators on Friday approved the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, the third vaccine approved for use on the European continent.

The World Health Organization (WHO) noted Monday that globally, the number of new coronavirus cases fell for the third consecutive week.

A team of World Health Organization scientists investigating the source of the coronavirus visited a wet market Sunday in Wuhan, China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill extending the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States a week before the pact was set to expire.