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GIANT SHIP BLOCKING SUEZ CANAL COULD TAKE ‘DAYS,

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Registered in the Department of Posts of Sri Lanka under No: QD/130/News/2021

PAGE 08 PAGE 11COMMENTARY LITERARY LIVES

THE CONSEQUENCES OF A NEGATIVE UNHRC VOTE

A LOVED BEYOND COMPREHENSION

MARCHMARCH26 - 28, 202126 - 28, 2021

- Petros Giannakouris/AFP/Getty

Members of the Presidential Guard make their way to the Parthenon before a flag-raising ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the 1821 revolution and war of independence on Thursday (25). Greece celebrated 200 years since the start of its independence war with the Ottoman Empire with

parades and ceremonies attended by foreign dignitaries, though the pandemic forced officials to scale back events. In a sunny interlude to cloudy weather that later turned to snow, a parade of tanks, artillery and overflying jets and helicopters marked the occasion in the capital, alongside mounted troops and

children in traditional costumes from the 1821 conflict and other wars. French Rafales and American F-16s were also part of the show, while a cannon on Lycabettus Hill overlooking Athens had earlier fired a salute of 21 shots. Britain, France and Russia were instrumental in helping Greece attain its independence

in 1830 after nearly a decade of warfare against overwhelming odds. Americans, including a nephew of George Washington, were among volunteer combatants. At the time, the Ottoman Empire extended through the Balkans and modern-day Turkey to North Africa, the Arabian peninsula and the Caucasus

World’s poorest face vaccine delays through Covax programSome of the world’s poorest countries have been warned to expect delays in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines through the UN-backed Covax program after a double blow of technical problems at a South Ko-rean manufacturing plant and setbacks in securing export licences from the Indian government, UNICEF has said.

Up to 90m doses of the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca vaccine may be affected by the twin issues, which came after reports on Wednesday (24) that India had put a tem-porary hold on vaccine exports amid a rise in new cases there.

Some of the countries expecting doses through Covax over the next week are South Sudan, Mauritius, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yemen, where the gov-ernment on Wednesday declared a health emergency as a second wave of infections takes off. UNICEF said on Thursday (25) it

was not immediately clear how those deliv-eries would be affected.

“The Covax facility has informed par-ticipants allocated volumes of the [Oxford/AstraZeneca] vaccine produced in South Korea that shipment volumes will be lower than planned in March,” a UNICEF spokes-person said.

The UN organization said it was working to confirm whether doses from the Serum Institute of India, the largest supplier to Covax, were subject to an export ban but said it understood there had been a “set-back in securing export licences”.

“We understand that deliveries of COV-ID-19 vaccines to lower-income economies participating in the Covax facility will likely face delays following a setback in securing export licences for further doses of COV-ID-19 vaccines produced by the Serum In-stitute of India expected to be shipped in

March and April,” the UNICEF spokesper-son said. Covax – a collaboration between UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the vaccine alliance Gavi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations – uses purchases by wealthier nations to fund vaccine supplies to poorer and mid-dle-income countries.

It has so far distributed 28m doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine manufac-tured by the Serum Institute, and said it was expecting an additional 40m doses to be available in March and up to 50m doses in April.

The Serum Institute is contracted to sup-ply 1bn vaccine doses to Covax this year, and received $300m in funding support from Gavi and the Gates Foundation to as-sist it in expanding its capacity.

-The Guardian-Read more on page 4

WASHINGTON - Pfizer has begun testing its COVID-19 vac-cine in children younger than 12, a significant step in turn-ing back the pandemic. The trial’s first participants, a pair of 9-year-old twin girls, were immunized at Duke University in North Carolina on Wednesday (24).

Results from the trial are expected in the second half of the year, and the company hopes to vaccinate younger children early next year, said Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for the pharmaceutical company. Moderna also is beginning a trial of its vaccine in children 6 months to 12 years of age. Both com-panies have been testing their vaccines in children 12 and older, and expect those results in the next few weeks.

AstraZeneca last month began testing its vaccine in children six months and older, and Johnson & Johnson has said it plans to extend trials of its vaccine to young children after assessing its performance in older children.

Immunizing children will help schools to reopen as well as help to end the pandemic, said Dr. Emily Erbelding, an infec-tious diseases physician at the National Institutes of Health who oversees testing of COVID-19 vaccines in special populations.

An estimated 80% of the population may need to be vacci-nated for the United States to reach herd immunity, the thresh-old at which the coronavirus runs out of people to infect. Some adults may refuse to be vaccinated, and others may not produce a robust immune response.

Pfizer had initially said it would wait for data from older chil-dren before starting trials of its vaccine in children younger than 12. But “we were encouraged by the data from the 12 to 15 group,” said Castillo, who did not elaborate on the results so far.

-New York Times

RIYADH - A fire broke out at an oil terminal in southern Saudi Arabia after it was hit by a projectile, the energy ministry said Friday (26), the sixth anniversary of a Riyadh-led military inter-vention in Yemen.

"A projectile attack on a petroleum products distribution ter-minal in Jizan... resulted in a fire in one of the terminal's tanks," the ministry said in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency, adding that no casualties were reported.

It did not say who was behind the strike on Thursday (25), but it comes as Yemen's Huthi rebels increasingly mount attacks on the kingdom's energy installations.

The attack comes after Saudi Arabia on Monday(22) offered the Huthis a "comprehensive" UN-supervised ceasefire, as part of a series of fresh proposals aimed at ending the catastrophic six-year conflict.

But the Huthis swiftly dismissed the initiative as "nothing new" as they reiterated their demand that a Saudi-led air and sea blockade on Yemen be completely lifted.

Riyadh led a military coalition into Yemen in March 2015 to prop up the internationally recognized government, but it has struggled to oust the highly motivated rebels.

The coalition says it enforced a naval and air blockade to pre-vent the smuggling of weapons to the rebels from Iran -- allega-tions Tehran denies.

Yemen on Friday marks the sixth anniversary of the Saudi-led military coalition's involvement in the disastrous war, which has left the country broken and on the edge of famine.

-AFP

Pfizer begins testing its vaccine in young children

Fire at Saudi oil terminal after projectile hit

LONDON- Britain and the United States on Thursday (25) an-nounced sanctions against military-owned conglomerate Myan-mar Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL) as part of "further meas-ures" targeting the regime after a coup.

"Today's sanctions target the military's financial interests to help drain the sources of finance for their campaigns of repres-sion against civilians," British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement. Washington announced shortly afterwards it was imposing sanctions on MEHL and also the Myanmar Eco-nomic Corporation Limited (MEC).

The Myanmar military "controls significant segments of the country's economy through these holding firms," said a treasury department statement. The companies dominate many key sec-tors of the economy, including trading, natural resources, alco-hol, cigarettes, and consumer goods.

"These sanctions specifically target the economic resources of Burma's military regime, which is responsible for the overthrow of Burma's democratically elected government and the ongoing repression of the Burmese people," said the US.

"These sanctions are not directed at the people of Burma."Britain said the designation came in response to evidence that

the MEHL contributed funds to support the country's armed forces "in their campaign on ethnic cleansing against the Roh-ingya in 2017".

The new sanctions follow last month's designation of nine members from Myanmar's ruling military junta who Britain said were directly responsible for human rights violations com-mitted by the police and military during the recent coup.

-AFP

UK and US sanction military-owned Myanmar conglomerate

Trending News Quote for TodayQuote for TodayIdealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.

-John GalsworthyWord for TodayWord for TodayConcatenation [kon-kat-n-ey-shuhn] -noun - a series of interconnected or inter-dependent things or events

Today in HistoryToday in History1971 - East Pakistan declares its independ-ence from Pakistan to form Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Liberation War begins

Today is...Today is...Purple Day

A day aimed at raising worldwide awareness of epilepsy, a neurological condition that af-fects over 65 million people globally

USA: Confronted by North Korea’s defi-ant missile tests and continued nuclear program, President Joe Biden is weigh-ing whether to step up pressure or to open a new diplomatic initiative.-Homes and businesses in Alabama are damaged and some even levelled as a tornado touches down near Birmingham, leaving residents to contend with piles of debris and loss of electricity and authori-ties to assess the severity of the devasta-tion.EU: Chief Ursula von der Leyen says As-traZeneca cannot export its COVID-19 vaccine doses out of the Union until it makes good on its promised deliveries to the bloc.Russia: The health of Alexei A. Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader who

survived a nerve agent poisoning, has deteriorated rapidly in recent days with undiagnosed back pain and numbness in one leg, his lawyers claim.Mauritania: An intruder tries to seize a plane at the airport in the country’s capital Nouakchott before being ar-rested,, with the man’s family saying he dreamed of studying in the US.Ukraine: The country registers a re-cord number of coronavirus deaths for the third straight day. UK: A British watchdog says it is inves-tigating former prime minister David Cameron over possible breaches of lob-bying laws in his role as an adviser to bankrupt financial firm Greensill Capi-tal.

2 MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 WEEKEND EXPRESS

BUSINESSBUSINESS

COLOMBO– The COPE committee has ordered an investigation into how Lanka Mineral Sands Ltd sold 85,000 metric tonnes of Ilmenite for a third-placed bidder and not the highest bid-der a parliamentary press release said.

The Chairman of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), Prof Charitha Herath, requested the Sec-retary to the Ministry of Industries, Anusha Pelpita, to immediately inves-tigate and submit a report on the ten-der. According to the press release the third-placed bidder had paid US$ 147 per MT while the highest bidder had offered US$ 165 per tonne. The sale had also been approved by a Cabinet sub-committee.

The COPE members who drew their attention to this issue said that the officials of the Lanka Mineral Sands Limited have taken steps to mislead

even the Cabinet of Ministers. It was also revealed that the current price of a metric tonne of ilmenite is close to US$ 240. The committee focused on the decline in sales in 2020 compared to the total sales in 2018 and 2019. It was revealed that 85,000 metric tonnes of ilmenite, which were sold to a buyer in October 2020, are still stored in the Pulmudai, which is caus-ing a loss to the company due to lack of storage facilities.

Officials of Lanka Mineral Sands Limited said the deadline for the re-moval of the consignment has been extended due to the prevailing Covid situation. It was revealed that pay-ments had been made for only 65,000 metric tonnes from this stock and payment for another 20,000 metric tonnes is to be recovered.

-economynext.com

LONDON - Oil prices fell on Thursday (25) as a new round of coronavirus restrictions in Europe revived worries about demand for oil products, even as tug boats struggled to move a stranded container ship blocking crude oil carriers in the Suez Canal.

Brent crude slid 62 cents, or 1%, to $63.79 a barrel at 1048 GMT. US West Texas Inter-mediate (WTI) crude dropped by 79 cents, or 1.3%, to $60.39 a barrel.

Both contracts jumped about 6% on Wednesday (24) after a ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, one of the world's most im-portant oil shipping routes. The Suez Canal Authority said on Thursday it had suspended traffic temporarily while eight tugs work to free the vessel. "We believe that the incident mostly creates noise in the market, and should remain without any lasting fundamental im-pact," said Norbert Rücker, analyst at Julius Baer bank. "Usually, similar incidents last days rather than weeks."

Wood Mackenzie's vice president Ann-Lou-ise Hittle said a few days of delays in crude or

product travelling through the Suez Canal to the Europe and the United States should not have a prolonged impact on prices in those markets. The oil market was more worried about the prospect of extended lockdowns in Europe and disruptions to the distribution of coronavirus vaccines.

India reported its highest one-day tally of new coronavirus infections and deaths and said a new "double mutant" variant had been found. "While the focus was on Europe, we also have rising COVID-19 cases in places like India and Brazil, developing economies which are really critical to the story for sustainable oil demand growth," said Commonwealth Bank commodities analyst Vivek Dhar.

Given the persistent demand worries and falling prices, expectations are growing that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, together called OPEC+, will roll over their current supply curbs into May at a meeting scheduled for April 1, four OPEC+ sources told Reuters.

-Reuters

Fashion retailer H&M is fac-ing a potential boycott in China after a statement the company made last year expressing deep concerns over reports of forced labour in Xinjiang stirred a social media storm this week.

A similar statement from Nike was also attracting criticism on Wednesday (24), a sign that West-ern clothing manufacturers could face growing hostility in China for their public stances against forced labour in Xinjiang and for halting cotton sourcing from the region. The H&M statement, which can be found on the website of the Swedish retailer, was posted in September after growing global scrutiny around the use of Uig-hurs in forced labour in Xinjiang.

In it, H&M said that it was “deeply concerned by reports from civil society organizations and media that include accusa-tions of forced labour and dis-crimination of ethno-religious minorities” in Xinjiang and that it had stopped buying cotton from growers in the region.

More than eight months later, in the wake of sanctions by West-ern countries against China for its treatment of Uighurs, H&M is facing online backlash from Chinese consumers. The outrage has been stoked by comments on platforms like the microblogging site Sina Weibo from celebrities and groups like the Communist Youth League, an influential Communist Party organization.

“Want to make money in China while spreading false rumours and boycotting Xinjiang cotton? Wishful thinking!” the group said in a post, echoing one of the People’s Liberation Army’s state-ments that called H&M’s stance “ignorant and arrogant.” On Monday (22), Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States announced sanctions on Chinese officials in an escalating row over the treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Roughly 1 in 5 cotton garments sold globally contains cotton or yarn from the region, where authorities have used co-ercive labour programs and mass internment to remould as many as one million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other largely Muslim minori-ties into model workers obedient to the Communist Party.

Nike could be next. The com-pany posted a statement on its website expressing concerns “about reports of forced labour in and connected to” Xinjiang. “Nike does not source products” from the region, and “we have con-firmed with our contract suppli-ers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region.” Huang Xuan, a Chinese actor who had a menswear contract with H&M, posted a statement say-ing he would quit the deal, add-ing that he opposed “slander and creating rumours” as well as “any attempt to discredit the country.” Singer and actress Victoria Song — who used to endorse H&M — also released a statement, saying that she no longer had a relation-ship with the brand and that “na-tional interests are above all else.”

By Wednesday evening, at least three major Chinese e-commerce platforms — Pinduoduo, Jin-gdong and Tmall — had removed H&M from search results and withdrawn its products from sale. The actions underscored the pres-sures faced by foreign companies doing business in China while navigating political and cultural debates like the country’s sover-eignty and its chequered human rights record.

On Wednesday night, H&M China responded with a post on the Sina Weibo microblogging site, saying the company did not “represent any political position.” “H&M Group respects Chinese consumers as always,” the state-ment said. “We are committed to long-term investment and de-velopment in China.” H&M is the world’s second-largest fashion retailer by sales, after Inditex, the owner of Zara, and China is its fourth-biggest market.

-New York Times

COPE orders investigation into dodgy Ilmenite sale

Rupee closes steady at 199.50/200.50 to the one week US dollar

LANKA IOC Commissions New SERVO Lube Distributor in Kottawa

Oil falls as demand concerns outweigh Suez Canal disruptions

H&M faces boycott in China over stance on treatment of Uighurs

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Infotainment

ROME — In an effort to contain costs and save jobs amid a slump in tourist dollars and donations as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis has ordered across-the-board pay cuts for the cardinals and other higher-ranking cler-ics working in the Vatican.

Cardinals will see their income trimmed by 10%, according to a decree published Wednesday (24). The superiors of Vati-can departments will have their salaries reduced by 8%, while 3% cuts will be ap-plied to upper-level priests and nuns. A two-year salary freeze has been imposed

on other employees at higher pay grades. The pandemic has “negatively influenced all sources of income for the Holy See and Vatican City State,” Francis wrote in an apostolic letter. “A sustainable economic future requires today, among other deci-sions, adopting measures that also con-cern employee salaries.”

The cuts, which go into effect on April 1, affect only the employees of the Holy See, Vatican City and associated institu-tions, including the Vicariate of Rome. They will not apply to Vatican personnel who can prove that they cannot sustain

the costs of personal medical care or that of close family members.

Of the roughly 5,000 people employed in the Roman Curia, the administrative institutions of the Holy See, and in Vati-can City State, cardinals have the highest monthly salaries, varying between 4,000 to 5,000 euros, ($4,700 to $5,900), ac-cording to Mimmo Muolo, the author of the 2019 book ‘The Church’s Money’. The Vatican does not make salaries of officials public.

The pope will not be affected by the cuts because he does not receive a salary. “As

an absolute monarch he has everything at his disposal and nothing at his disposal,” Muolo said.

“He doesn’t need an income because he has everything that he needs.”

The economic fallout of the corona-virus pandemic has “heavily impacted” revenues, the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy wrote in a note in February.

The 2021 budget approved by Francis projected a deficit of 49.7 million euros. Personnel expenses account for about half the budget.

-New York Times

As coronavirus hits Vatican revenue, pope cuts pay for high-ranking clerics

LIOC Managing Director, Manoj Gupta Inaugurating the New SERVO Lube Distributor - M/s. Kottawa Lanka Filling Station

By Elizabeth Paton

COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s rupee closed steady at 199.50/200.50 to the one week US dollar on Thursday (25), while yields remained unchanged in dull market, dealers said. Trade minister Bandula Gunewardene told Parlia-ment this week the rupee exchange rate was controlled at 200 levels with great difficulty and if allowed it could hit 300-350 levels given past trends. However, he did not give a timeline of Rs 350. In the secondary market bond yields are flat in dull market trade, dealers said, adding that the market was waiting for the Rs 60 billion bond auction to be held on March 29. The debt office is selling Rs 60 billion split into Rs 25 billion bonds maturing on 15.11.2023, Rs 20 billion maturing on 15.01.2026 and Rs 15 billion bonds maturing on 01.05.2028. Meanwhile, two bond maturing on 15.12.2022 and 15.11.2023 closed flat at 5.80/85%, and 6.25/35% respective, and a bond maturing on 01.12.2024 closed at 6.60/65% down from 6.63/70% the previous day.

A bond maturing on 01.05.2025 closed at 6.75/90% , steady from 6.75/95% and a bond maturing on 15.02.2026 closed at 7.05/15%, up from 7.02/10% while a bond matur-ing on 15.08.2027 closed at 7.45/55%, up from 7.40/55% on the previous day. A bond maturing on 01.05.2029 closed at 7.98/10%, down from 8.00/20% the previous day, while a bond maturing on 15.05.2030 was quoted at 8.00/25%, steady from 8.00/30%.

-economynext.com

COLOMBO – LANKA IOC, Sri Lanka’s No. 1 listed en-ergy company, continues its growth trajectory, with the commissioning of a new SERVO Lube Distributor in the High Level Road, in the Kottawa area, taking its total lube Channel Partner network to 27 across the island. The new-est outlet was inaugurated by Manoj Gupta, Managing Director LIOC. In terms of market share in lubricant seg-ment, SERVO currently occupies the No. 2 position in Sri Lanka and the new expansion plans aimed at propelling it towards being a market leader. LIOC has also appointed seven new SERVO Lube Distributors in various districts across the Island, making it convenient for customers to source SERVO lubricants.

LANKA IOC manufactures automotive, industrial and marine SERVO lubricants at its state of art plant in Trin-comalee. In a statement released, the company affirmed its commitment to the development and economy of Sri Lan-ka, noting that the entire ranges of SERVO Lubricants are locally manufactured. LIOC is the first licensed lubricant company in Sri Lanka to bring in DEF by grade name IOC Clear Blue used in SCR After Treatment Systems. This is an Ad Blue certified product meeting ISO 22241 specifications

Lanka IOC also hope to start manufacturing grease lo-cally by end of mid 2021, in line with government’s vision – ‘Vistas of Prosperity & Splendour’.

GLOCALWEEKEND EXPRESS MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 3

Express Newspapers (Cey) Pvt. Ltd.,185, Grandpass Road, Colombo 14, Sri LankaTelephone: 0117 322 705 (Editorial) 0117 322 731 (Advertising)0117 322 789 (Circulation)Email – editor.dailyexpress@encl.lk/weekendexpress@encl.lk Epaper - http://epaper.newsexpress.lkFacebook –News Express Sri Lanka

COLOMBO – India’s decision to temporarily hold all exports of the As-traZeneca COVISHIELD vaccine will not immediately affect Sri Lanka, as the island has enough doses till the end of May, State Minister Prof Chan-na Jayasumana said on Thursday (25), adding a further 500,000 doses owed to Sri Lanka are expected to arrive as scheduled.

Jayasumana, the State Minister of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals told a local television channel, starting April 11, Sri Lanka’s

COVISHIELD stocks will be adminis-tered as the second dose for frontline worker who received their first jab in late January and early February.

He urged people not to panic over the export suspension announced by India, noting that Sri Lanka had re-ceived over 1.2 million doses of the vaccine.

Increased domestic demand in In-dia for the vaccine due to rising cases of the virus has prompted the Indian government to halt all exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine until the end of

April, international media reported Thursday morning. The Serum Insti-tute of India (SII) which manufactures the AstraZeneca vaccine under the brand ‘COVISHIELD’ has agreed to produce one billion doses for the CO-VAX facility to be distributed among low and middle income countries. Ac-cording to reports, the export restric-tion will affect some 190 countries un-der COVAX.

Sri Lanka's health authorities, on March 17 said that over 800,000 local citizens in the island's main Western

Province had received the AstraZen-eca vaccinations, as a mass scale inoc-ulation program was underway since early February after vaccinating front line workers and health workers. Ini-tially 500,000 doses of the AstraZen-eca vaccines arrived from India in late January and a further 500,000 doses arrived in February.

Sri Lanka received 264,000 doses of the AstraZeneca this month under the WHO's COVAX facility, which is being administered to those above 60.

-economynext.com/Xinhua

Sri Lanka has enough COVISHIELD till May NEW YORK – The United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka is a vic-tory for victims of abuses to help them obtain information, accountability, and justice, Hu-man Rights Watch said on Thursday (25), call-ing on UN and member countries to empha-size to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa that any reprisals against activists who campaigned for the resolution would have serious consequenc-es. Resolution 46/1, adopted on Tuesday (23), establishes a powerful new accountability pro-cess to collect, analyze, and preserve evidence of international crimes committed in Sri Lanka for use in future prosecutions. The Sri Lankan government vigorously opposed the resolu-tion, and there have been numerous reports of threats and harassment against rights activists in recent months.

“The Human Rights Council’s landmark resolution on Sri Lanka shows that if justice is denied, the UN will act to provide accountabil-ity for atrocities,” said John Fisher, Geneva di-rector. “When governments fail to respect their international law obligations, as Sri Lanka has, it’s crucial for the Human Rights Council to re-spond with substantive measures like these.”

Families of abuse victims have struggled for years to learn what happened to their loved ones and to see those responsible held to ac-count. The resolution was adopted in response to a devastating report in January by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, on the failure of successive Sri Lan-kan governments to provide justice and ac-countability. It establishes a dedicated new capacity within the Office of the UN High Com-missioner for Human Rights “to collect, con-solidate, analyse and preserve information and evidence” of gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humani-tarian law committed in Sri Lanka, and “to advocate for victims and survivors, and to sup-port relevant judicial and other proceedings, including in Member States, with competent jurisdiction.” After many years in which there was barely any progress on accountability, this measure brings justice closer for international crimes committed in Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch said. The high commissioner is man-dated to deliver a report to the Human Rights Council after 18 months, including “options for advancing accountability.”

In her January report, the high commission-er also warned of “clear early warning signs of a deteriorating human rights situation and a sig-nificantly heightened risk of future violations.” Since coming to power in November 2019, the administration of President Gotabaya Raja-paksa has targeted vulnerable minorities with discriminatory laws and subjected victims’ groups, human rights defenders, and civil so-ciety groups to a renewed climate of fear and intimidation. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was defence secretary in the government of his brother, for-mer president (now prime minister) Mahinda Rajapaksa, between 2005 and 2015. Sri Lan-kan government forces and the separatist Lib-eration Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) commit-ted numerous war crimes and human rights abuses during the civil war that ended in 2009. The Rajapaksas and other senior members of the current government were implicated in al-leged war crimes, particularly during the final months of the conflict. The government has also blocked accountability for other serious violations, including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

The core group of states that brought this resolution – the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Malawi, Montenegro, and North Macedonia – have stood in support of human rights and accountability in Sri Lanka, and up-held the credibility of the Human Rights Coun-cil by advancing justice for serious violations of international law, Human Rights Watch said. Altogether 22 Human Rights Council members voted for the resolution, while 11 voted against, and 14 abstained, more than 40 countries co-sponsored the resolution, which remains open for co-sponsorship. Among the countries that voted in favor or co-sponsored the resolu-tion are Sri Lanka’s largest trading partners, including the United States and members of the European Union. The resolution was in-troduced by the United Kingdom, which is Sri Lanka’s largest source of foreign direct invest-ment. These governments should continue to use their influence to press for the protection of human rights in Sri Lanka, including respect for minorities and religious rights and an end to threats and intimidation against victims’ groups and human rights activists.

UN member states should now follow through and ensure that the high commis-sioner’s recommendations are carried out, including by imposing targeted sanctions on those allegedly responsible for grave viola-tions and pursuing justice for international crimes in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction. “The Human Rights Council resolution is an important step toward delivering justice for terrible crimes, but it’s critical to remain focused on the violations be-ing committed in Sri Lanka today and the clear risk of future abuses,” Fisher said. “Victims’ groups, civil society, and minority communi-ties still need support and protection through sustained international engagement to uphold human rights in Sri Lanka.”

-HRW

UN resolution a victory for victims

A man belonging to the Vedda tribe, the island's aboriginal inhabitants, takes part in a demonstration in Colombo on Wednesday (24), against the rapid deforestation and destruction of wildlife reserves

- LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI / AFP

COPA reveals

Indian HC says informed of arrests, working with

SL Govt. to secure consular access

Says HRW, expressing concerns

of government retaliation

against rights advocates

Half a million more due from Serum; India’s export ban won’t affect Sri Lanka, says State Minister

COLOMBO - The Sri Lanka Navy on Wednesday (24) arrested 54 Indian fishermen poaching in Sri Lankan wa-ters and detained five boats, the Navy media unit said on Thursday (25), not-ing the arrests were made in separate areas in the Northern seas. It said Navy units attached to the Northern Naval Command nabbed a large Indian fishing vessel with 14 personnel onboard, about three nautical miles off the coast of Ko-vilan, Jaffna, adding that the seized ves-sel, had a 75ft long, 22ft wide steel hull, was powered by a 280 hp engine and was capable of harvesting a huge fish stock with its motorized trawls. The me-dia unit said 1030 kgs of illegally caught fish and fishing gear were also seized by the Navy.

The North Central Naval Command, had detained two more Indian fishing vessels with 20 fishermen about seven nautical miles off Pesalai, Mannar and 5 nautical miles off the Iranativu Island, while the Eastern Naval Command, had seized two fishing vessels with 20 fisher-men about 7.5 and 8.5 nautical miles off Mullaitivu. “The illegal entry of foreign fishermen into Sri Lankan waters and the use of prohibited fishing methods like bottom trawling to catch even very small fish has seriously threatened the marine ecosystem and endangered the livelihood of fishermen in the northern

part of the island,” the media unit said, noting that the Navy has previously in-formed the Indian authorities when similar incidents of trawling reported.

The Navy said the patrols were car-ried out adhering to safety and health guidelines in place for the prevention of the spread of the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the Indian High Commis-sion in Sri Lanka, in a statement issued on Thursday said it had been informed about the apprehension of 54 fishermen and five boats from India by Sri Lanka Navy, reiterating that issues associated with Indian fishermen are to be dealt in a humanitarian manner. “Providing im-mediate consular access and emergency supplies to apprehended fishermen are of prime importance,” the statement said, adding that the High Commission was working with Government of Sri Lanka for expeditiously securing consu-lar access for the fishermen.

It also noted that bilateral mecha-nisms were in place to comprehensively address all matters related to fisheries. Recalling that the Fourth meeting of the Secretary-level JWG held on De-cember 30, 2020 through virtual mode it said follow-up measures on the basis of discussions which took place during the meeting need to be taken forward quickly.

-CG/ENCL

COLOMBO - Sri Lanka’s opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) questioned the 10-year lease of a gov-ernment shopping arcade to a private firm for management, asking to reveal whether open tenders were called.

JVP legislator Anura Kumara Dissan-ayake told Parliament the Independence Square Arcade was built at the cost of Rs 700 million in tax payer money as part of beautifying Colombo city.

However it was now making losses and was being given on a 10-year lease Sri Lanka’s Softlogic group. He ques-tioned the process behind the Urban Development Authority, which comes under Minister Nalaka Godahewa, say-ing the state minister should make a statement to Parliament on whether an open tender process was called to lease

the Arcade Shopping Complex,” he said. He questioned whether there was cabi-net approval for the deal.

Dissanayake also took a swipe at the ruling party over privatizing the man-agement of the shopping arcade, which he claimed went against its political platform that opposed giving state as-sets to private companies.

A government statement Wednesday (24) said the Arcade Independence Square shopping complex which was under the Urban Development Author-ity has been handed over to the Softlogic Holdings PLC under a 10-year- lease agreement.The ownership will remain with the UDA. The UDA refurbished several historic building dating back from the British period into arcade.

-econonomynext.com

COLOMBO - Sri Lanka’s decision to withdraw from the previous Unit-ed Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution resulted in the fresh resolution that was passed in Geneva this week, the United National Party (UNP) said on Thursday (25).

Calling the outcome in Geneva a colossal failure, the UNP said the government’s reversal of the UNP-led government’s co-sponsorship of the previous resolution in 2015 left Sri Lanka with the support of just 11 countries.

UNP Chairman Vajira Abeywardena told reporters it was then President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2009 who en-tered into an agreement with the then UN Secretary-General.

“Former President Mahinda Raja-paksa undertook a joint agreement with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which is something no Sri Lankan president had done before. It is now the duty of the government to uphold the obligations the former president signed,”he said.

Explaining the reasons for his gov-ernment’s decision to co-sponsor the resolution, Abeywardena said they were simply adhering to the condi-tions the former president agreed to on behalf of the country.

“According to the resolution spon-sored by the UNP Government, Sri Lanka would adhere to a domestic mechanism. We did not agree to any foreign involvement beyond observ-ers”, he said, adding that the govern-ment should explain what domestic mechanism Sri Lanka is now going to follow.

“Under the UNP Government it was the local courts which would inves-tigate allegations of war crimes and decide on the innocence or guilt of those accused. This government has rejected that procedure by withdraw-ing from the resolution,” he said.

Abeywardena also said it was the UNP’s ability to positively engage with the international community that se-cured Sri Lanka the GSP+ concession from the European Union in 2017, adding that Sri Lanka now has until 2023 to win back the confidence of the international community, before the GSP+ comes up for renewal.

He also noted that it was UNP leader and then Prime Minister Ranil Wick-remesinghe’s decision to not sign the Rome Statue which ensured no citizen of Sri Lanka would be taken before the International Criminal Court, despite the government claiming otherwise.

-economynext.com

COLOMBO– Parliamentary Com-mittee on Public Accounts (COPA) on Wednesday (23) called for urgent action to reform the Arts stream in the country’s universities as more than half of the graduates are unem-ployed.

A statement from Parliament said COPA members who were discussing an audit report on education under the Arts Stream and the Unemploy-ment of Arts Graduates, had pointed out that the unemployment rate of Art’s graduates should be looked at, and “appropriate remedial action be taken”. COPA Chair Prof Tissa Vitarana directed the Ministry of Education and the relevant authori-ties to submit a report governing the new National Policy on Education by May, the statement said, adding that Vitarana urged the National Educa-tion Commission to seek the support

of the relevant ministry and all par-ties when formulating the policy.

It said University Vice Chancellors attending the meeting emphasized that special attention should be paid to the elimination of harassment and ragging within the university system in the formulation of the new Na-tional Policy on Education.

Given that the general education system is an integral part of the na-tional development process affect-ing the lives of all Sri Lankans, the Committee r had recommended the National Policies on School Educa-tion be revised, amended and im-plemented expeditiously, especially at a time as such where acceleration of the economic development is ex-pected. The Committee had also em-phasized the need to provide human and physical facilities as required in all parts of the country to promote

the teaching of technology. Students should be provided with alterna-tive routes and streams of choice to choose from while they are still in secondary school, the committee had noted, bringing to the attention of the educational authorities the importance of further strengthening the teaching of English in order to facilitate the development of com-munication skills in schools and uni-versities.

The Committee had also informed the officials that in order to make the best use of the human and physical resources available in the Univer-sities, the traditional methods of pursuing degree courses should be changed and higher education op-portunities provided by those insti-tutions should be increased to enable more students to enter universities.

-economynext.com

JVP questions privatizing management of Independence Square arcade

UNP charges withdrawal from previous resolution led to Gevena outcome

Navy arrests 54 Indian fishermen poaching in Sri Lankan waters

More than half the Arts graduates unemployed

4 MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 WEEKEND EXPRESS

SRI LANKA FOCUSSRI LANKA FOCUS

Effects and implications of the UNHRC resolution on Sri LankaCOLOMBO – The result of the passing of a resolution concerning Sri Lanka in Geneva at the United Nations Human Rights Commis-sion (UNHRC) has left many ask-ing questions as to how it will im-pact the country and its future.

Here are answers to some fre-quently asked questions.

Question: Will there be sanc-tions against Sri Lanka as a result of the passing of the Resolution?Answer: No

As Senior Researcher at the Cen-tre for Policy Alternatives in Co-lombo Bhavani Fonseka pointed out, the UNHRC does not have the power to impose sanctions. “Only the UN Security Council has that kind of power and that is an en-tirely different process.”

However, Fonseka said “individ-ual countries may impose targeted sanctions such as travel bans on certain persons.”

Countries or groups such as the European Union – which sup-ported the resolution may with-draw special concessions such as the GSP+ which gives Sri Lankan exports a monetary advantage in those markets. That concession which had been withdrawn previ-ously was restored after the 2015 Presidential Elections.

Opposition Member of Parlia-ment Eran Wickramaratne ob-served: “An urgent fresh appraisal is needed to minimize the negative economic consequences of the res-olution. We must not risk legal bat-tles in foreign jurisdictions, travel bans, economic and trade embar-goes. The economic consequences will be catastrophic.”

Question: Did Sri Lanka win or lose in Geneva?Answer: We lost the vote

This is not a zero-sum game. To begin with, the Resolution did not target Sri Lanka as a nation or its general public. It equally pointed fingers at some members of the Sri Lankan Military and the Lib-eration Tigers of Tamil Eelam for gross Human Rights violations such as War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.

It calls for transparent investiga-tions and a process that would lead

to healing and reconciliation. The Resolution urges the government to implement recommendations already proposed by multiple com-missions appointed by the Mahi-nda Rajapaksa administration.

The report presented by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also ad-dressed the overtly anti-minority actions of the current administra-tion.

Question: Was it a diplomatic failure?Answer: Yes

Despite the government’s claim that the country “won” on the premise that abstentions equal support, some of our staunchest allies, such as India and Japan, who have contributed hugely to our economic and political devel-opment did not oppose the resolu-tion. Instead, India used the occa-sion to reiterate at the debate on the resolution that it had the inter-ests of the Tamil minority at heart.

Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of CPA called it “a diplomatic fiasco.”

Sri Lanka has in recent months spoken in favour of North Korea and Eritrea at the UNHRC making it impossible for Japan and South Korea as well as many African countries to support Colombo’s stand, some observers have said.

The hard core vocal LTTE sup-porters, mostly concentrated in the West, had a muted celebration as the resolution condemned the Ti-gers for preventing civilians from leaving the warzone following its long-term strategy of using people as a human shield.

Amnesty International com-mented that the “resolution re-sponds to an OHCHR report re-leased in January, which warned that Sri Lanka’s persistent failure to address historic crimes is giving way to ‘clear early warning signs of a deteriorating human rights situ-ation and a significantly height-ened risk of future violations,’ and made concrete recommendations for “preventive action” for the Hu-man Rights Council, including en-hanced monitoring and reporting, and the collection and preserva-tion of evidence, which has been mandated by this resolution.”

Question: Will Sri Lankans be charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC)?Answer: No

The old claim made by the cur-rent government’s supporters that Sri Lanka’s “war-heroes” will be taken to the electric chair is ab-solutely incorrect, and pure mis-information used for propaganda purposes, former parliamentarian Dr. Jayampathy Wickremeratne said.

The ICC, Fonseka pointed out, “acts only when the domestic judi-cial process is unable to deal with a matter,” noting the domestic set-up has to detain and hand over the person for trial. The ICC, she said, has no mandate to enter a country to carry out an arrest.

No action can be taken without the cooperation of the Government of Sri Lanka, she added.

Question: So what is the effect of the Resolution, will it affect the country immediately?Answer: No

The immediate action is to pass funds to create an office that will investigate, collect and preserve evidence of alleged War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity committed in Sri Lanka during the war.

Amnesty noted that the “reso-lution not only ramps up inter-national monitoring and scrutiny of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka but also mandates the UN human rights office to collect, consolidate and preserve evidence for future prosecutions and make recommendations to the interna-tional community on steps they can make to deliver on justice and accountability.”

Its representative in Geneva, Hilary Power, was quoted as say-ing: “This is a significant move by the Human Rights Council, which signals a shift in approach by the international community. Years of support and encouragement to Sri Lanka to pursue justice at the national level achieved noth-ing. This resolution should send a clear message to perpetrators of past and current crimes that they cannot continue to act with impu-nity.”

-economynext.com

COLOMBO - Human Rights Watch (HRW) in an open letter to Dinesh Gunawardena, Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated Thursday (25), has urged the Sri Lankan government to immediately withdraw the invitation to the representative of Myanmar’s military junta, to participate in the April 1 virtual meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Coopera-tion (BIMSTEC).

The letter, signed by HRW’s Asia Director Brad Adams, notes that by including Wunna Maung Lwin, the military junta representative, in the meeting, the Sri Lankan government is lending unwarranted legitimacy to the junta’s State Administration Council (SAC) instead of Myanmar’s democratically elected government,

which was deposed in a military coup on February 1, 2021.

Detailing the national election re-sults and events leading up to the military coup, the ensuing detention of the leaders of the National League for Democracy, including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and the ongoing nationwide protests organized by the national Civil Disobedience Move-ment demonstrating widespread opposition to military rule, the let-ter notes the junta’s response to the largely peaceful protests has been in-creasingly brutal.

“Security forces have unneces-sarily used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons, and live ammunition against peaceful protesters, engaged in extrajudicial executions, and bru-

tally beaten many of those they have detained,” it states, pointing out that as of March 22, the Myanmar secu-rity forces have killed more than 250 people, and arbitrarily detained more than 2,600 people.

The letter goes on to point out that the SAC, whose representative the Sri Lankan minister has invited to at-tend BIMSTEC, has also ordered the shutdown of mobile data and public Wi-Fi, and has placed areas of the country under martial law. “In the areas where martial law is imposed, protesters, other opponents of mili-tary rule, and journalists will face trials in closed military courts under unfair trial procedures, with no right to appeal. According to a SAC order, those convicted by military courts may be sentenced to death, hard la-

bour for unlimited periods of time, or the most severe sentence authorized under existing law,” it states.

The letter also highlights Foreign Secretary, Adm. (Ret.) JayanathCo-lombage’s , response to criticism of the invitation to WunnaMaungLwin, that “unless BIMSTEC expels Myan-mar, Sri Lanka has no mandate to ex-clude them,” and sates, Sri Lanka can choose whom it treats as the legiti-mate representative of the country. However, it warns that accepting the junta’s representative, the Sri Lan-kan government is telling the people of Myanmar that it sides with the generals who are responsible for the shooting of protesters in the streets, rather than the representatives of the government Myanmar’s people voted for in November 2020.

By Arjuna Ranawana

Rohantha Athukorala felt helpless. It was April 2020 when Sri Lanka was on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, and he wanted to do some-thing immediately to help the country slow the spread of virus.

“The lockdown was so sudden and absolute. It was hard not being in control of what you can and can’t do,” says Athukorala, a member of the Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections, Sri Lanka. “Espe-cially for us Rotarians, who pride ourselves on help-ing our communities in desperate times.”

But sheltering in place had its advantages, he says, providing the time and opportunity to con-nect with fellow members online. Their discussions sparked ideas about what they could do to help peo-ple understand how to stay safe from the corona-virus.

Promoting safety though social mediaAthukorala started by contacting club and district

leaders, talking with government officials, and lis-tening to business leaders. In late April, he launched Stop the Spread, a comprehensive effort to reduce new infections through behaviour changes.

He asked the more than 5,000 Sri Lankan In-teractors to lead the campaign and be community advocates for specific behaviours such as wearing masks, washing hands, and social distancing. In-teractors used their social media networks to blast daily messages about staying safe from the virus, and posted relevant communications from the Min-istry of Health.

To complement the Interactors’ communication, Athukorala worked with the country’s Ministry of Sports and the National Olympic Committee to get top athletes to become ambassadors for Stop the Spread. More than 280 athletes — including stars in cricket and rugby, as well as Olympians — par-ticipated in videos and graphics that were posted on social media.

Stop the Spread also promoted safety protocols through a certification process for businesses. Athukorala and fellow Rotary members created the certification with the Sri Lanka Standards Institu-tion that enabled companies that are compliant with certain safety guidelines to be certified as a COVID-19-controlled environment. Protocols such as mandatory mask wearing, temperature checks, and social distancing had to be in place in order to receive the certification. Nearly 300 businesses, educational institutions, supermarkets, and other retailers have passed the program’s rigorous au-dits and received certification, allowing customers and students feel safe while supporting these busi-nesses. When the lockdown order was lifted in early May, Interactors fanned out across their communi-ties to visit businesses, homes, and public transport to give people educational materials and safety guidance. They became leaders in helping schools implement COVID-19 safety protocols, which al-lowed schools to open in early July.

“Our Interactors have been fantastic and made a real difference in getting crucial information out to the public,” Athukorala says, who was chair of the Sri Lanka Tourism Bureau and served as the chief business development officer for Sri Lanka at the United Nations.

Tools and technologyTo encourage hand washing, local Rotary clubs

worked with S-lon, a plastic water pipe company, and PickMe, a transportation organization, to build nearly 2,000 mobile hand washing units that attach to three-wheel bikes. Riders are encouraged to wash their hands before and after using the bikes. The aim is to promote hand washing hygiene in public spaces and increase hand washing rates, which is one of the best protections against COVID-19 infec-tion.

The Rotaract Club of Kelaniya created a mobile app, Track the Spread that allows Sri Lankans to log symptoms and register positive tests. The app is integrated with local hospitals and health centres so medical professionals can identify hotspots and communicate with people about their symptoms. It also allows people to purchase goods online from grocery stores, pharmacies, retail shops, and even pay utilities with the app, while allowing people to stay home and thus contain the spread. “This is helping commerce continue,” Athukorala says.

The government of Sri Lanka is now testing the app for widespread adoption across its health de-partments.

The next phaseAs vaccinations are increasing in the country,

more than 800,000 doses have been administered so far, Rotary clubs have also worked with local health officials to support vaccine sites including logging data.

Clubs worked with the World Health Organiza-tion and Ministry of Health to develop a booklet for Parliament representatives and religious and com-munity leaders to facilitate a successful vaccination program. The printable booklet has information on different vaccines, safe practices, and key messages that leaders can use to better inform people about the COVID-19 vaccines.

More than 88,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed as of mid-March, with over 530 deaths.

“We have done a great job at keeping COVID-19 at bay, but our next focus is making sure Sri Lanka can adequately provide vaccinations to its people,” Athukorala says.

-rotary.org

LONDON - A new UN resolution on Sri Lanka is an important step forward and of-fers renewed hope of long-awaited justice for victims of the country’s 30-year civil conflict, said Amnesty International, fol-lowing its adoption by the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Tuesday (23).

The resolution not only ramps up inter-national monitoring and scrutiny of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, but also mandates the UN human rights of-fice to collect, consolidate and preserve evidence for future prosecutions and make recommendations to the international community on steps they can make to de-liver on justice and accountability.

“This is a significant move by the Hu-man Rights Council, which signals a shift in approach by the international com-munity. Years of support and encourage-ment to Sri Lanka to pursue justice at the national level achieved nothing. This resolution should send a clear message to perpetrators of past and current crimes that they cannot continue to act with im-punity,” said Hilary Power, Amnesty In-ternational’s representative to the UN in Geneva.

“While an important first step, the real impact of further monitoring and report-ing will rely on other UN member states using the resolution as a basis for concrete action, including investigations and pros-ecutions under universal jurisdiction and a possible referral to the International Criminal Court.”

The resolution was adopted in light of what the UN human rights chief described as “insurmountable barriers for victims to access justice” at national level, and the “inability and unwillingness” of the Gov-ernment to prosecute and punish perpe-trators of crimes under international law.

The resolution comes in the wake of damning reports by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Amnesty International and others, condemning Sri Lanka’s ongoing refusal to address historic crimes and ex-pressing alarm over the deteriorating out-look for human rights in the country.

As the resolution was being negotiated in Geneva, Sri Lanka continued to issue blanket denials and reject the findings and legitimacy of the UN report. In the mean-time, at home the authorities continued to prove the concerns valid, passing new regulations that target minorities.

“We urge Sri Lanka to engage construc-tively with the OHCHR, to implement the recommendations of the report and to allow full and unfettered access to the country. Failing this, the Human Rights Council may take more robust action, including the establishment of an inde-pendent accountability mechanism,” said Hilary Power. The resolution responds to an OHCHR report released in January, which warned that Sri Lanka’s persistent failure to address historic crimes is giv-ing way to ‘clear early warning signs of a deteriorating human rights situation and a significantly heightened risk of future violations,’ and made concrete recommen-dations for “preventive action” for the Hu-man Rights Council, including enhanced monitoring and reporting, and the collec-tion and preservation of evidence, which have been mandated by this resolution.

Prior to the UNHRC session, Amnesty International published an assessment of the situation in Sri Lanka, setting out clear expectations for UNHRC action. Am-nesty International also released a report in February, Old ghosts in new garb: Sri Lanka’s return to fear, which details the authorities’ renewed crackdown on dis-sent and obstruction of efforts to deliver justice for conflict-era crimes, and a state-ment in March around the worrying trend of increased marginalization and targeting of Sri Lanka’s Muslim community.

By Ryan Hyland

Stop the SpreadA crucial turning point on justice and accountability

HRW urges Sri Lanka to withdraw BIMSTEC invitation to Myanmar

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Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena addresses a press conference in Colombo, shortly after the UNHRC vote in Geneva on Tuesday (23)

Explained

Amnesty International on

UN Resolution

How Rotarians, Rotaractors, and

Interactors worked together in a

nationwide project that promoted

behaviour change and initiated

safety standards for businesses

HOT TOPICSWEEKEND EXPRESS MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 5

Giant ship blocking Suez Canal could take ‘days, even weeks’ to freeCAIRO — As tugboats strained against the weight of the mammoth ship and dredgers worked to clear sand and mud, a salvage company working on the operation warned on Thursday (25) that releasing the container vessel blocking traffic in the Suez Canal could take days or even weeks.

Dozens of ships laden with oil and goods destined for ports around the world are stranded in the canal, and with each passing hour, the economic cost of the disrup-tion grows more consequen-tial.

The stuck ship, the Ever Given, has been wedged in the canal since running aground amid the heavy winds of a sandstorm Tuesday (23). Its bow is lodged in the canal’s eastern bank and its stern in the western bank.

Eight large tugboats were attempting to push and drag the ship from its unintended berth, the Suez Canal Author-ity said in a statement Thurs-day, but at about 1,300 feet long — roughly equivalent to the height of the Empire State Building — and weighing around 200,000 metric tons, dislodging the Ever Given is proving challenging.

An attempt to extract the ship at around 8:00 a.m. Thursday did not succeed, forcing salvagers to try again later in the day, the ship’s technical manager, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, said in a statement on Thurs-day. The company said that a specialized suction dredger had arrived to help dig the ship out.

The Japanese company that owns the ship, Shoei Kisen

Kaisha, acknowledged in a statement on Thursday that the situation was “extremely difficult” and apologized for the disruption caused by the episode. “We will continue to do our utmost” to move the ship, it said.

Peter Berdowski, chief exec-utive of Royal Boskalis West-minster, which has been ap-pointed by Ever Given’s owner to help move the vessel, told Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur on Wednesday (24) that the operation to free the ship could take “days, even weeks.”

Berdowski, whose company has been involved in expand-ing the Suez Canal, said that Ever Given was stuck on both shallow sides of the V-shaped waterway. Fully loaded with 20,000 containers, the ship “is a very heavy beached whale”, he said.

Authorities had first tried to float the vessel using tug-boats, a model that worked to free the CSCL Indian Ocean, a similarly sized container ship that became stuck in the Elbe River in 2016, near the port of Hamburg, Germany. Salvag-ing that ship took 12 tugboats and three attempts, and part of the sandbank where the ship ran aground had to be dredged.

Berdowski said that the Ever Given was too heavy for tugboats alone, adding that salvagers might need to ex-tract fuel, pump out water from the ballast tanks and re-move some of the containers to make the ship lighter and therefore easier to move. And the dredging may require ex-tra equipment, he said.

Everything depends on how deep the massive container

ship is stuck. “The more deep-ly the ship is stuck, the harder it is to lose weight, the more time it will take to free it,” Ber-dowski said.

The ship’s manager has said in a statement that a prelimi-nary investigation found that the vessel grounded because of strong winds, not because of mechanical or engine fail-ure. The company said that all 25 crew members, who the ship’s owner said were all In-dian citizens, were safe and that there were no reports of injuries, pollution or cargo damage.

The global shipping and supply industry — already battered by the surge in orders caused by the coronavirus pandemic and recent disrup-tions at factories in Japan and Texas — waited to see whether the disruption from the traffic jam would amount to a couple of days’ minor inconvenience, or something worse.

The canal, from which Egypt derives much of its rev-enues and geopolitical signifi-cance, handles about 10% of all global trade. By connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterra-nean, the canal offers a short-cut worth about 10 days of sailing time to ships carrying oil and cargo from Asia to Eu-rope and beyond. More than 50 ships pass through it on an average day.

Egypt opened a new lane in one section of the canal in 2015, an $8 billion expansion that the president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, heralded as a historic national accomplish-ment. But the Ever Given is sitting diagonally across an-other section of the canal, one that has only one lane.

-New York Times

SEOUL — North Korea is-sued warnings for more than a week. It swore that the Biden administration would pay a “price,” accused it of raising “a stink” on the Korean Peninsula and called Washington’s effort to open a channel of communi-cation a “trick,” vowing to deal with the United States “power for power.”

Now, it appears that North Korea is done talking.

On Thursday (25) it de-livered its latest warning by launching two short-range bal-listic missiles off its east coast — the first such test by the country in a year and its first significant provocation against the United States under Presi-dent Joe Biden.

The launch, which defied the UN Security Council’s ban on ballistic missile tests by North Korea, indicated that

the country was once again re-sorting to a show of force, rais-ing tensions to gain leverage as the Biden administration finalizes its North Korea policy review. The test was also seen as a signal to Washington that Pyongyang will carry out more provocative tests, involving longer-range missiles, if it de-cides Biden’s policies are un-reasonable.

“North Korea uses weap-ons tests strategically, both to make needed improvements to its weapons and to garner global attention,” said Jean H. Lee, a North Korea expert at the Woodrow Wilson Inter-national Center for Scholars. “With the United States hint-ing that it will seek to tighten the sanctions regime, North Korea will be looking to ex-pand its arsenal by ramping up testing.”

The Biden administration has been reviewing whether to deal with North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats with more sanctions, a new round of dialogue or a mix of both. As the policy review continues — and the possibil-ity that the Biden administra-tion will abandon the summit diplomacy of former President Donald Trump grows — North Korea appears to be “return-ing to a familiar pattern of us-ing provocations to raise ten-sions,” Lee said.

The North’s manoeuvres leave the Biden administration with a difficult choice. Even if it engages North Korea with another round of negotiations, there is no guarantee that the country will give up its nuclear arsenal, which has continued to expand in recent years.

-New York Times

By Vivian Yee

By Subrata Nagchoudhury, Devjyot Ghoshal

By Choe Sang Hun

BRUSSELS – An expected cameo ap-pearance by US President Joe Biden did little to distract from the danger of Eu-rope’s looming third wave of coronavirus infections at Thursday’s (25) EU video summit.

The US president was set to address the 27 EU leaders by video-link later in the day in a show of mending transatlan-tic ties after the diplomatic battles of the Donald Trump years.

But, as the EU leaders’ talks started, it was clear Biden’s intervention would be just a brief respite from the main subject: How to outpace the resurgent pandemic when vaccine deliveries to the bloc have come up short, and jab campaigns are get-ting off the ground slowly?

Host Charles Michel, president of the European Council, had hoped to hold a face-to-face summit but was forced to ac-cept a stripped-down video conference because of travel curbs.

A key summit topic is the European anger over UK-based pharma giant As-traZeneca failing to meet vaccine delivery promises while ensuring smooth supplies to former EU member Britain.

EU countries are also squabbling amongst themselves over how to share vaccines, and not all are happy with a beefed-up European Commission move that could block some vaccine shipments to countries like Britain which produce jabs but don’t export them.

Draft conclusions seen by AFP support the EU export authorization scheme while urging Europe to step up vaccine produc-tion.

“We underline the importance of trans-parency as well as of the use of export au-thorizations,” the draft says.

“We reaffirm that companies must en-sure predictability of their vaccine pro-duction and respect contractual delivery deadlines.”

French President Emmanuel Macron admitted on the eve of the summit that Europe had lacked ambition while the United States, in particular, forged ahead with its inoculation drive.

“We weren’t quick enough, strong enough on this,” he told Greece’s ERT television. “It’s quite true and we thought that the vaccine would take time to take off.” Germany’s Chancellor Angela Mer-kel defended Europe’s pooled-purchasing strategy, telling German lawmakers: “I wouldn’t like to imagine what would hap-pen if some member states had vaccines and others not. That would shake the in-ternal market to its core.”

A European official described the EU export authorization mechanism as “a loaded gun under the table”. It is widely seen as a means to pressure AstraZeneca to boost deliveries.

But Ireland, Belgium and the Nether-lands are among countries wary of any move to block exports from vaccine pro-ducers such as Pfizer/BioNTech, which supplies both the EU and UK.

If global vaccine supply chains are dis-rupted, many countries could lose out, as both British Prime Minister Boris John-son and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen accept. Their administrations issued a joint statement saying: “We are all facing the same pandemic and the third wave makes cooperation between the EU and UK even more important.”

They are in discussions about how “to create a win-win situation and expand vaccine supply for all our citizens” but have yet to come to agreement on how to share AstraZeneca doses.

The firm has delivered only 19 million of the 30 million doses it had promised to the EU in the first quarter - a pledge already radically reduced from a contrac-tual 120 million doses.

Much of the focus of Brussels and Lon-don is on an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands producing doses which both sides claim should be theirs.

A European diplomat told reporters that an acceptable compromise would be the UK and the Commission agreeing to equally shoulder the AstraZeneca short-fall. Another sensitive issue is the distri-bution of vaccines which Europe has al-ready received.

A group of smaller states led by Austria is demanding a revision in the divvying-up method after they missed an earlier opportunity to secure a bigger share of costlier vaccines by betting on the cheaper - but unreliably supplied-- AstraZeneca one. Against this backdrop, Biden’s ap-pearance offers a positive note, with Eu-ropean officials delighted with the new US administration’s warmer tone.

Just before the summit started, Biden’s top diplomat Antony Blinken wrapped up a two-day visit to Brussels that included talks with NATO ministers and top EU officials in which close coordination was pledged.

Agence France-Presse

By Anne-Laure Mondesert and Dave Clark

NEW DELHI - India appeared Thursday (25) to have put the brakes on exporting COVID-19 vaccines as it battles a new wave of infections at home and a faltering inoculation drive.

India recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cas-es on Thursday for the first time since November, while its aim to inoculate 300 million people by August runs be-hind schedule with 53 million shots given so far.

India is a major vaccine supplier to other nations, par-ticularly poorer ones, including under the Covax global in-oculation program led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Gavi alliance.

So far it has sent more than 60 million doses to 76 countries, mostly AstraZeneca shots manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's largest vaccine maker by volume.

On Thursday the Gavi alliance said deliveries of vac-cines to lower-income economies "will face delays" be-cause of a "setback" in Serum obtaining export licences from the Indian government.

A Gavi spokesperson said the delays in granting the licences "are due to the increased demand of COVID-19 vaccines in India."

"Covax is in talks with the government of India with a view to ensuring deliveries as quickly as possible," the spokesperson said, without giving further details.

"SII has pledged that, alongside supplying India, it will prioritize the Covax multilateral solution for equitable dis-tribution. Covax is in talks with the government of India with a view to ensuring deliveries as quickly as possible."

The Indian government and Serum were not immedi-ately available for further comment.

"It is not clear how long it will take to resolve the de-lays," an industry source told AFP.

India, home to 1.3 billion people, was this month over-taken by Brazil as the second-most infected country after cases dipped in December and January from a peak of nearly 100,000 a day in September.

But recent weeks have seen an uptick, with health min-istry data on Thursday showing almost 54,000 new infec-tions over the previous 24 hours, the most since October.

India's strict lockdown has been steadily eased over the past year and in recent months most activity, including weddings, religious festivals and some cricket matches, returned to normal.

Now many regions are re-imposing curbs, particularly in the hard-hit western state of Maharashtra where offi-cials have launched random virus checks in crowded areas in the local capital Mumbai - with those tested having to pay.

"Just to enter a mall, you have to give 250 rupees ($3.50) over here, (and) that too with a queue of one hour," said Mumbai resident Mohit Jain as he lined up to enter a shopping mall.

"It will cause a lot of inconvenience for the malls as well as for the customers also," he told AFP.

The country's known coronavirus cases are approaching 12 million, with more than 160,000 deaths.

The health ministry said Wednesday (24) that the vari-ants first detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil have been found in India, but not in "numbers sufficient to ei-ther establish (a) direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some states".

Meanwhile, India this week decided to allow all over-45s to be inoculated as it attempts to vaccinate 300 mil-lion people by August.

"(It) would be good if the government decides to stop the export and look after its own Indian citizens first," Delhi resident Beulah Pillay, 62, said as she received her first dose.

- Agence France-Presse

KOLKATA - The populous Indian state of West Ben-gal has emerged as a key battleground for Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi’s party, which is looking to extend its national domination and dislodge one of Modi’s sharpest critics.

To win power in the eastern state, where a month-long election begins on Saturday (27), Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has deployed its formidable election machinery, backed by deep pockets.

The party brass – including Modi and his powerful home minister Amit Shah – has also been relentlessly campaign-ing, flanked by local leaders poached from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has ruled the state since 2011 and is headed by firebrand Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP currently controls a dozen of the country’s 28 states, with alliance partners in several others. But it has never won power in West Bengal, whose 90 million people make it the fourth most populous state.

“A victory in Bengal would mean that they are closer to their one-nation, one-party ambition,” said political ana-lyst NilanjanMukhopadhyay.

Winning states is key to controlling the upper house of the federal parliament whose members are elected by state assemblies. The BJP already has a huge majority in the lower house of parliament and will be in a better posi-tion to enact legislation through parliament, analysts say.

Victory in West Bengal could also weaken political op-position against the government’s recent moves, includ-ing a months-long farmers agitation over new farm laws, Mukhopadhyay said.

“It will be an endorsement of Modi’s politics and poli-cies through the pandemic,” he said.

But the BJP faces a formidable opponent in Banerjee, the incumbent chief minister who has been campaigning from a wheel-chair after a recent accident.

“Do not look at individual candidates, cast your vote for me,” Banerjee says in her public rallies. Her centrist party came to power when it ousted the Communists who had ruled the state for more than 30 years.

Opinion pollsters have predicted a close race, despite the BJP making rapid gains against the state’s ruling party.

-Reuters

India delays vaccine exports as cases soar

EU leaders wrestle with vaccine woes as Biden dials in

‘Power for power’

Modi pushes to win West Bengal

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A part of the Taiwan-owned MV Ever Given (Evergreen), a 400-metre (1,300-feet)-long and 59-metre wide vessel, lodged sideways and impeding all traffic across the waterway of Egypt’s Suez Canal

North Korea returns to a show of force

6 MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 WEEKEND EXPRESS

REALITY CHECKREALITY CHECK

Barbed-wire fences blocked escape for thousands fleeing the Rohingya

camp fire

How the pandemic has changed

grieving

New Zealand approves

paid leave after

miscarriage, stillbirth

‘There was nowhere to run’

Kilometres of barbed-wire fencing surrounding Bangla-desh’s Rohingya camps may have blocked people from fleeing a massive blaze that burnt thou-sands of shelters to the ground, witnesses say.

Aid groups are still tallying the destruction from the March 22 fire, which spread rapidly across bamboo-and-tarpaulin tent homes in parts of four conjoined camps at the sprawling Kutupa-long complex near Cox’s Bazar.

Early assessments on Tuesday (23) found 15 people died, at least 10,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, and more than 45,000 people were displaced. Two chil-dren are among the dead, ac-cording to aid agency BRAC, and casualties are expected to rise. At least 400 people were initially listed as missing.

Mujif Khan, a 24-year-old liv-ing in a nearby camp, said he rushed to the fire on Monday (22), trying to douse the flames with other volunteers.

“When the fire caught the shelters, the children and older people couldn’t run out of the camps due to the fencing,” he told The New Humanitarian by phone. “There was nowhere to run.”

Rights groups say the gov-ernment has erected at least 28 kilometres of barbed-wire fenc-ing and watchtowers around the largest parts of the camps, which are home to some 900,000 Ro-hingya refugees originally from Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

The fencing also slowed help from arriving, said another Roh-ingya refugee who witnessed the blaze. He said there were few en-trances or gates in the section he was at, which meant desperate relatives and Bangladeshi fire services had trouble getting in.

“It was difficult for the fire services to enter the camps. The gate was really far, so it took a

long time,” said the 26-year-old, who asked not to be named as he considered the issue to be sensi-tive.

“People could not get near the fire because of the wire fence,” he said. “When people could not get to the fire, then how could they save their neighbours?”

John Quinley, a rights special-ist with Southeast Asia-based Fortify Rights, said aid workers and Rohingya also told him the fences made it difficult to evacu-ate, though it wasn’t yet clear how significant an obstacle they were.

“At minimum, it created a backlog to people leaving the camps,” he said.

Even before Monday’s fire, the fences and checkpoints often made it harder to reach health clinics or other aid services, and there were calls from Rohingya and rights groups to remove them.

“Women that need to go to hospitals to give birth are having to cross checkpoints while preg-nant, and having to negotiate with the military or police to get services in clinics and hospitals across the street,” Quinley said.

Myanmar’s military is accused of genocide for its persecution of the Rohingya, including the vio-lent purge of more than 700,000 people in 2017. Bangladesh’s government has offered safety to Rohingya for decades, but im-poses heavy restrictions aimed at preventing them from inte-grating. Rohingya aren’t allowed to work or attend formal schools, and are barred from leaving the camps without permission.

“The main objective of erect-ing the fences is to ensure that the Rohingyas do not leave the camp and join our communi-ty,” Bangladesh’s home affairs minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, told reporters last year. In re-cent months, authorities have

also transferred thousands of Rohingya to Bhasan Char, a flood-prone island on the Bay of Bengal. Most Rohingya say they want to return home to Myan-mar, but it’s unsafe to do so – es-pecially since a 1 February mili-tary coup that has destabilised the country.

Monday’s blaze was the lat-est – and by far the largest – to hit different parts of the camps in recent months. A January fire destroyed 550 shelters home to some 3,500 people, aid groups reported.

The cause of Monday’s fire is still under investigation. An ear-ly report from BRAC suggested an exploding gas cylinder may have been responsible. Rohing-ya households receive cylinders of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking fuel as part of their aid supplies.

Aid groups say the fire de-stroyed a number of facilities, including several health clinics, food distribution centres, and a market. The UN’s migration agency, IOM, said its largest health clinic in the camp was “completely destroyed”. The World Food Programme said two of its nutrition centres and a food distribution site were “burnt to the ground”.

The fire left tens of thousands homeless overnight. Some have taken shelter with friends or family in neighbouring camps, and aid groups have opened up other facilities to house others.

On Tuesday, many families returned to salvage what they could from the charred remains of their homes, said the 26-year-old Rohingya refugee, who had come to offer help.

“People lost all their belong-ings – everything,” he said. “They’re running around from here to there. The fire has left these people homeless.”

-thenewhumanitarian.org

HARIDWAR - As a stream of Hindu devotees dip themselves in India’s sacred Ganges River for a ritual believed to purify their souls, a young boy plunges into the water to find his fortune.

Rahul Singh is one of dozens of coin pickers making a living by re-trieving offerings thrown into the waterway by pilgrims visiting the northern holy city of Haridwar.

Every day for six hours, the 13-year-old scours the chest-deep water with a magnet attached to a long stick, as hymn-chanting crowds toss in valuables. “It needs a lot of effort but I enjoy doing it,” Singh told AFP, after fetching 30 rupees (45 US cents) worth of coins. Watch-ing him closely is Raja Yadav, who

was eight when he arrived in the city as a runaway boy after hearing tales of underwater treasures.

Yadav - nicknamed ‘Jhinga’ (shrimp) for his swimming prowess - literally struck gold six years ago when he found a necklace he was told was worth $1,300.

Now 22, he leads a team of 15 picker-boys including Singh.

Last year’s national coronavirus lockdown saw visitors to Haridwar dry up for several months, leaving Yadav’s team struggling to survive on their meagre savings.

But like the pilgrims, Yadav had unflinching faith in the river god-dess, and travellers returned this year, undeterred by a recent surge in cases.

“We always believe that Ganga is our mother and she will never let her children sleep hungry,” he said.

“The pilgrims are back and we are happily diving again.”

Rivers play a central role in Hindu religious rituals, with devotees toss-ing in offerings of money, clothes and ornaments into the waters to show gratitude for sustaining life.

In the Ganges, some immerse the ashes of deceased relatives to achieve ‘moksha’ - liberation from reincarnation.

During the bathing festival of Kumbh Mela, immense crowds throng the Ganges in the world’s largest religious gathering. This year it is taking place in Haridwar, where more than three million people took

part in the ritual during one day in March.

Underwater treasure hunters use their feet to feel out for the precious metals on the riverbed, or dive in and search with their naked eyes.

A one-day haul of coins adds up to 300-400 rupees ($4.15-5.50) for each boy, although that soars up to 1,000 rupees during Kumbh Mela, Yadav said.

Merchants pocket a 20% commis-sion in exchange for currency notes, while black-market buyers take jewellery at half of retail price, and copper and steel utensils are sold as scrap. The boys pick up coconuts and religious paraphernalia to resell if there aren’t enough coins.

- Agence France-Presse

By Irwin Loy

By Jalees Andrabi

The shadow of death has rarely fallen so per-sistently on our lives as in recent months.

Every day brings an update of how many more people have been taken by COVID-19. One was Andre Schneider’s father, who passed away in a German hospital’s intensive care unit on December 9.

How can the bereaved take final leave of loved ones amid coronavirus restrictions on travel, social gatherings and physical contact? How can they mourn together when funeral receptions and embracing are largely out of bounds?

Schneider, whose real name has been changed, says his father, 68, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in late October and hospital-ized. He was short of breath and his blood oxy-gen levels kept dropping, so only brief phone conversations were possible. Doctors urged that he be moved to intensive care, and he fi-nally agreed, telling his family, “I want to live.”

He was put into a medically induced coma and placed on a ventilator, after which fam-ily members could only speak with his doc-tors. “There were ups and downs,” Schneider recalls. Hopes rose when his father’s oxygen levels did, and sank when they fell.

“It’s much more difficult now to visit pa-tients who are dying,” notes Jan Moellers, a Berlin-based funeral director and cultural sci-entist. Hospital visitor rules have become very restrictive in many places, and it’s often hard for family members to meet in person to talk and make plans. But Moellers says people are finding new ways to say goodbye.

If visiting the hospital or hospice is no longer possible, family members can ask the nursing staff to place a phone next to the dy-ing person so that they can speak to him or her one last time.

They can write a letter with everything they wish they had said and have it placed under the person’s pillow, or later in the coffin or container for cremation, suggests grief coun-sellor and author Mechthild Schroeter-Rupie-per, who says symbolic closeness is important too.

Symbolic closeness is currently playing a greater role at the end of people’s lives because “internments have fundamentally changed during the coronavirus crisis,” says Elke Her-rnberger, spokeswoman for the Federal Asso-ciation of German Funeral Directors (BDB). Funeral attendance is severely limited and so-cial distancing rules must be observed.

The restricted attendance often forces the bereaved to make a painful decision on whom to invite - and whom not to - points out Moellers. Live-streams or videos of burials have now become common to allow mourners who can’t be physically present to be virtually so. Some people include a precise schedule of the burial in the death announcement so that, for example, all of the mourners can listen to the same song at the same time, whether they’re in attendance or not. “The first time I experienced this, I had a feeling of profound intimacy,” Moellers remarks.

He says an increasing number of people are also distributing little bags at burials that con-tain things such a photograph of the deceased and recipe for a “decentralized wake”.

Accepting that we’re living through a pan-demic and a lot is temporarily impossible can be helpful in finding new ways to pay one’s last respects, Moellers says.

Schroeter-Rupieper agrees. “We’ve got to be creative in times like these,” she says. “And we’ve got to learn to find the right words again - we’ve become so speechless.”

Many people believe that an embrace says more than a thousand words, but now they have to do without physical contact to express their condolences at a funeral service.

“Showing empathy at the moment is only possible by speaking and writing,” Schroeter-Rupieper says. So instead of embracing, we have to fall back on an alternative: “Saying, ‘Feel hugged,’ also expresses your desire to comfort.” Schneider’s father had already lain four weeks in the intensive care unit when the senior physician phoned to say there was no longer a chance of recovery and, for ethical reasons, treatment therefore couldn’t be con-tinued.

“The meaning of that has to sink in first,” Scheider says. “It means that [life-sustaining] equipment must be switched off.”

Schneider, his brother and mother were al-lowed one last visit. Wearing protective suits, they spent about two hours with their father and husband. The hospital chaplain said a prayer with them, and then the doctor turned the ventilator dial regulating oxygen supply. The patient’s heart rate dropped, and within a minute he was dead.

“You could see life leave him,” Schneider re-calls.

Only close family members were present at the burial, and they all stood well distanced from each other. Friends came later to throw a flower into the grave, Schneider says.

He expressly noted his father’s cause of death in the obituary, wanting to show that the daily statistics on COVID-19 deaths aren’t merely numbers: Behind each one lies a fam-ily’s sorrow.

-dpa

AUCKLAND — New Zealand’s Parlia-ment on Wednesday (24) unanimously approved legislation that would give cou-ples who suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth three days’ paid leave, putting the country in the vanguard of those providing such benefits.

Ginny Andersen, the Labour member of Parliament who drafted the bill, said she had not been able to find comparable leg-islation anywhere in the world. “We may well be the first country,” she said, adding, “But all the countries that New Zealand is usually compared to legislate for the 20-week mark.”

Employers in New Zealand, as in some other countries, had already been required to provide paid leave in the event of a still-birth, when a foetus is lost after a gesta-tion of 20 weeks or more. The new legisla-tion will expand that leave to anyone who loses a pregnancy at any point, removing any ambiguity. The measure is expected to become law in the coming weeks.

“I felt that it would give women the con-fidence to be able to request that leave if it was required, as opposed to just being stoic and getting on with life, when they knew that they needed time, physically or psychologically, to get over the grief,” An-dersen said.

The new law does not apply to those who terminate pregnancies, Andersen added. New Zealand decriminalized abor-tion last year, ending the country’s status as one of the few wealthy nations to limit the grounds for ending a pregnancy in the first half.

In Australia, people who miscarry are entitled to unpaid leave if they lose a foe-tus after 12 weeks, while in Britain, would-be parents who experience a stillbirth after 24 weeks are eligible for paid leave. The United States does not require employers to provide leave for anyone who suffers a miscarriage.

Up to 20% of all known pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage, ac-cording to the Mayo Clinic. In New Zea-land, whose population is 5 million, the Ministry of Health estimates that one to two pregnancies in 10 will end in miscar-riage.

The charity Sands New Zealand, which supports parents who have lost a preg-nancy, says 5,900 to 11,800 miscarriages or stillbirths occur each year. More than 95% of the miscarriages occur in the first 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy, according to data from the New Zealand College of Midwives.

A miscarriage or stillbirth remains a fraught and painful topic, one that is diffi-cult to talk about publicly or seek support for, health advocates say.

“If you ring the hospital saying, ‘I think I’m miscarrying my baby,’ so many wom-en will say, ‘I felt like I was the first per-son in the world to be miscarrying,’” said Vicki Culling, an educator about baby loss who has pushed for better support for be-reaved parents in New Zealand.

“The foundations of your world just crumble, because you expect to have this beautiful baby, and when that baby dies, whether it’s in utero or soon after birth, everything is shattered.”

Culling applauded the New Zealand leg-islation as a first step but said there was more to be done.

“You get three days’ paid leave, maybe you bury your baby or you have a service, and then you go back to work, and you carry on — and then what? That’s my con-cern,” she said.

“I’m celebrating it, but I want to see us keeping this compassion going and look-ing further into the needs of these par-ents.”

-New York Times

By Vera KraftBy Natasha Frost

Goodbye letters in coffinsBereavement leave

Indian coin hunters dive for fortunes in the sacred Ganges

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People search for their belongings on Tuesday (23), after a fire burned down all the shelters in a part of the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

RETHINKING AMERICAWEEKEND EXPRESS MARCH 26 - 28, 2021

Democrats escalate voting rights drive, targeting GOP restrictions

7

Democrats began pushing on Wednesday (24) for the most substantial expansion of voting rights in a half-century, laying the groundwork in the Senate for what would be a fundamental change to the ways voters get to the polls and elections are run.

At a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders made a passionate case for a bill that would mandate automatic voter registration nationwide, expand early and mail-in voting, end gerrymandering that skews congressional districts for maxi-mum partisan advantage and curb the influence of money in politics.

The effort is taking shape as Republicans have introduced more than 250 bills to restrict voting in 43 states and have continued to spread false ac-cusations of fraud and impro-priety in the 2020 election. It comes just months after those claims, spread by President Donald Trump as he sought to cling to power, fuelled a deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 that showed how deeply his party had come to believe in the myth of a stolen election.

Republicans were unapolo-getic in their opposition to the measure, with some openly arguing that if Democrats suc-ceeded in making it easier for Americans to vote and in enact-ing the other changes in the bill, it would most likely place their party permanently in the minor-ity.

“Any American who thinks that the fight for a full and fair democracy is over is sadly and sorely mistaken,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY and the

Senate majority leader. “Today, in the 21st century, there is a concerted, nationwide effort to limit the rights of citizens to vote and to truly have a voice in their own government.”

Schumer’s rare appearance at a committee meeting under-scored the stakes, not just for the election process but his party’s own political future. He called the proposed voting rollbacks in dozens of states — includ-ing Georgia, Iowa and Arizona — an “existential threat to our democracy” reminiscent of the Jim Crow segregationist laws of the past.

He chanted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at Republicans who were promoting them.

It was the start of an uphill battle by Senate Democrats, who have characterized what they call the For the People Act as the civil rights imperative of modern times, to overcome di-visions in their own ranks and steer around Republican oppo-sition to shepherd it into law. Doing so may require them to change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster, once used by seg-regationists to block civil rights measures in the 1960s.

Republicans signalled they were ready to fight. Conceding that allowing more people to vote would probably hurt their candidates, they denounced the legislation, passed by the House this month, as a power grab by Democrats intent on federaliz-ing elections to give themselves a permanent political advantage. They insisted that it was the right of states to set their own election laws, including those that make it harder to vote, and warned

that the Democrats’ proposal could lead to rampant fraud, which experts say has never been found to be widespread.

“This is an attempt by one party to write the rules of our po-litical system,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Sen-ate Republican leader, who has spent much of his career oppos-ing such changes.

“Talk about ‘shame,’” he add-ed later.

Some Republicans resorted to lies or distortions to condemn the measure, falsely claiming that Democrats were seeking to cheat by enfranchising undocu-mented immigrants or encour-aging illegal voting. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said the bill aimed to register millions of such im-migrants, although that would remain unlawful under the measure. The clash laid bare just how sharply the two parties have diverged on the issue of voting rights, which attracted biparti-san support for years after the civil rights movement but more recently has become a bitter partisan battleground. At times, Republicans and Democrats ap-peared to be wrestling with ir-reconcilably different views of the problems plaguing the elec-tion system.

With Republicans unified against them, Democrats’ best hope for enacting the legislation increasingly appears to be to try to leverage its voting protections to justify triggering the Senate’s so-called nuclear option: the elimination of the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes, rather than a simple majority, to advance most bills.

-New York Times

WASHINGTON — With Con-gress unlikely to move quickly on gun legislation, the White House is pressing ahead with plans for a se-ries of executive orders that Presi-dent Joe Biden expects to roll out in the coming weeks as a way of keep-ing up pressure on the issue.

A day after Biden called on the Senate to pass a ban on assault weapons and strengthen back-ground checks in response to a pair of mass shootings in the past week that left 18 people dead, White House officials said Wednesday (24) that while moving legislation on gun safety remained a goal, it would take time, given the vehe-

ment opposition from Republi-cans. Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, said that legislation was necessary to make permanent changes. But she also suggested that the executive actions under consideration could be a realistic starting place.

For now, administration officials have been reaching out to Demo-crats in the Senate to consult with them about three executive actions. One would classify as firearms so-called “ghost guns” — kits that allow a gun to be assembled from pieces. Another would fund community violence intervention programs, and the third would strengthen the

background checks system, accord-ing to congressional aides familiar with the conversations.

Aware that any executive actions on guns will face legal challenges, the White House Counsel’s Office has also been vetting those actions to make sure they can withstand ju-dicial review, officials said.

During his campaign, Biden promised to enact universal back-ground check legislation, prohibit all online sales of firearms and ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity maga-zines. But Biden has acknowledged that he does not know what legis-lation might be possible, even after

the recent shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado.

With the National Rifle Associa-tion, once the most powerful lob-bying organization in the country, tied up in bankruptcy and spending more money on legal fees than on fighting the White House or Con-gress, Biden could have more room to manoeuvre.

In an interview Wednesday with ‘CBS This Morning’, Vice Presi-dent Kamala Harris said, “This is not about getting rid of the Second Amendment. It’s simply about say-ing we need reasonable gun safety laws.”

-New York Times

By Nicholas Fandos

By Annie Karni

The most revolutionary part of President Joe Biden’s agenda so far is his focus on a constitu-ency that doesn’t write whiny op-ed columns, doesn’t vote, doesn’t hire lobbyists and so has been neglected for half a century: children.

Biden’s proposal to establish a national pre-K and child care system would be a huge step forward for children and for working parents alike. It would make it easier for moms and dads to hold jobs, and above all it would be a lifeline for many disadvantaged children.

Imagine: You drop a kid off at a high-quality prekindergarten program in the morning and pick the child up on the way home from work. That’s how it is in many other advanced coun-tries and in the US military.

When my wife and I lived in Japan in the late 1990s, we sent our kids to one of these nurseries, and they were a dream.

But the United States never developed such a system, because for half a century as other countries were investing in children, the Unit-ed States was stiffing them. Today one of our saddest statistics is this: American children ages 1 to 19 are 57% more likely to die than children in other rich countries.

Some of those kids die because the United States doesn’t provide universal health care to children — only to senior citizens, who vote and thus are a priority. Some die because the United States tolerates some of the highest child poverty rates in the industrialized world. And some die because the United States just doesn’t have programs to support children that are routine in Canada and Europe.

So the most historic part of the Biden agen-da, to me, is a determined effort to invest in America’s kids and reverse decades of child neglect. Just as Franklin Roosevelt revolution-ized conditions for the elderly by instituting Social Security, Biden may be able to do the same for children.

Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan included monthly child allowances and other elements that other countries have used to reduce child poverty. A Columbia University study estimated that these programs, if sus-tained, could reduce child poverty by about half.

Much of the attention on Biden’s next step is on infrastructure and climate change, and they are critical. But still more important for America’s future, in my view, will be the ele-ments focused on children. While plans are still being developed, it appears that Biden will propose:

— Making his child allowances permanent.— Expanding home visitation programs that

help at-risk moms and dads from pregnancy through early childhood. These lower foetal drug and alcohol exposures, curb lead poison-ing, encourage parents to read to their children and reduce domestic violence and child abuse. Home visitation programs like Nurse-Family Partnership have been rigorously tested and greatly improve outcomes.

— Working toward universal access to high-quality pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds.

— Ensuring high-quality affordable day care for parents, with costs not to exceed 7% of in-comes for most parents.

One model the White House is studying is the excellent day care system offered by the US military, because the armed forces don’t want to have to deal with the child care crises that parents routinely face in the civilian world.

Can we afford this Biden revolution in child programs? It will indeed be expensive. And there is a perennial debate over whether it’s better to have programs that are targeted at the neediest (which are more cost-effective) or those that are universal (which are politically more sustainable).

But I’ve written about the heartache in my hometown in rural Oregon: More than one-quarter of the kids on my old school bus are dead from “deaths of despair”: drugs, alcohol and suicide. Taxpayers spent huge sums incar-cerating my former classmates when the funds would have been far better spent reducing foe-tal alcohol exposures and tackling childhood trauma, illiteracy, failure to graduate from high school and a lack of job skills.

One reason our efforts to fight poverty haven’t achieved more is that we often start too late. For some of my middle-aged friends wrestling with homelessness, mental health crises and decades of addiction, with more of a criminal record than an educational record, it may not be possible to turn lives around. For their kids and grandkids, we have to try.

Many early childhood programs pay for themselves when aimed at the most disadvan-taged, notes Nobel-winning economist James Heckman, because they reduce spending on criminal justice, special education, health care and other services. One study by Heckman found that programs for vulnerable young children generated a 13% annual rate of re-turn.

So, please, President Biden, push on. This is about America’s future. This is your chance to preside over a Rooseveltian revolution that sprinkles opportunity and averts tragedies for decades to come.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to invest in children and break cycles of poverty, educational failure and substance abuse. It’s whether we can afford not to.

-New York Times

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration arranged special access to government-run coronavirus testing for members of his family and other influential people as the pandemic swept into New York last year, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The move to make testing of people closely tied to Cuomo a priority was car-ried out by high-ranking state health offi-cials, one of the people said. It came as the seriousness of the virus was still becoming clear to the broader public and testing was not widely available to most people.

Among those who benefited from the special treatment was the governor’s brother, the CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, and his family, who were tested several times in the pandemic’s early phase, this person said. The governor’s mother, Mat-ilda Cuomo, and at least one of his sisters were also able to take advantage of the state-administered tests, the two people said.

Chris Cuomo announced on March 31 last year that he had tested positive for the virus. A CNN spokesperson did not imme-diately respond to a request for comment.

That the governor’s administration ef-fectively let well-connected people cut the line to determine whether they had been infected with a deadly virus that was rav-aging the state was reported earlier by The Times Union of Albany, New York, and The Washington Post.

The revelation comes as Andrew Cuomo confronts the most significant crisis of his political career, with many of his fellow elected New York Democrats calling for him to resign in the face of multiple sex-ual harassment allegations and questions about his administration’s handling of the virus-related deaths of nursing home resi-dents.

The state Assembly opened an impeach-ment investigation this week to examine both issues, while the state attorney gen-eral has started a separate inquiry and federal prosecutors are investigating the nursing home matter.

Richard Azzopardi, a spokesperson for the governor, did not explicitly deny that the administration had extended special treatment to anyone while also seeking to dispute the notion.

“In the early days of this pandemic, when there was a heavy emphasis on contact tracing, we were absolutely going above and beyond to get people testing,” he said, adding that the effort included “in some instances going to people’s homes — and door-to door-in places like New Rochelle — to take samples from those believed to have been exposed to COVID in order to identify cases” and to prevent others from developing the disease.

He added: “Among those we assisted were members of the general public, in-cluding legislators, reporters, state work-ers and their families who feared they had contracted the virus and had the capabil-ity to further spread it.”

Early last year, with the federal govern-ment scrambling to meet the demand for testing and New York becoming the US epicentre of the pandemic, the state-run Wadsworth Centre in Albany was for a time the only laboratory in the state that was approved to perform virus tests.

Even then, the Wadsworth laboratory only had the capacity to process a few hundred samples. Lab capacity in the state increased quickly last March but re-mained limited by late in the month, when Chris Cuomo was tested, according to one of the people with direct knowledge of the matter.

-New York Times

By Nicholas KristofBy J. David Goodman and Ed Shanahan Biden plots a revolution

for America’s childrenCuomo’s family is said to have received special access to virus tests

White House weighs executive orders on gun control

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) addresses a Senate Committee on Rules and Administra-tion hearing in Washington on Wednesday, (24), regarding the ‘For the People Act of 2021’

8 MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 WEEKEND EXPRESS

COMMENTARYCOMMENTARY

If government fails to manage UNHRC resolution properly

Why the Rajapaksas need to acknowledge the existing reality and

evolve their future strategies accordingly

Editorial of The Hindu

UN Human Rights

Council resolution on

Sri Lanka

The consequences of a negative UNHRC vote

As expected, the UNHRC has voted against Sri Lanka on a resolution moved by the Core Group, headed by the UK and which included Germany and Can-ada. But, it has technically given Co-lombo time till September 2023 to make amends for past laxity and/or adaman-cy. Again, as expected, India abstained from voting, despite the prime movers amending their ‘zero draft’ to include the Indian reference to the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, facilitat-ed by New Delhi in 1987, but which has been followed only in the breach.

It should come as a satisfaction for Sri Lanka, as the results showed only 22 of the 47 members voted for the resolution, followed by 14 abstentions, including India and Indonesia, amongst others. Then came the ‘nay’ votes, adding up to 11. If the resolution won, it owed to tech-nical reasons as 14 abstentions reduced the valid votes to 33 (47-14), and 17 be-came the half-way mark. With 47 votes, it would have been at least four votes short, but then that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Western-bloc nations have voted on expected lines. Latin America did not stand by the traditionally left-leaning Third World nation from South Asia, as Colombo had thought. It owed this to the personality of UNHRC chief, Mi-chelle Bachelet, President of Chile from 2006-10, who continued in active poli-tics before taking up the current assign-ment in 2018, Bachelet wields clout in the region. The UNHRC statement, on which the resolution is based, stands in her name.

The Rajapaksa regime’s more recent targeting of the nation’s Muslims on the burial/cremation of COVID-19 victims despite a WHO advisory that the COV-ID dead could be buried, and threat of a burqa-ban were both ill-timed. This resulted in the Islamic bloc not voting together. Bahrain and Indonesia ab-stained. Obviously, Sri Lanka allowing the burial of COVID dead and clarifying that the burqa ban was only a proposal were too little, too late. However, Co-lombo receiving Pakistan Premier Im-ran Khan and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa travelling to Bangladesh did ensure that those two Muslim nations voted in favour of Sri Lanka, and against the resolution.

Going by the wording of the current resolution, Sri Lanka has time till Sep-tember next year, to re-evaluate the domestic approach of the incumbent government under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahi-nda, his brother and war-time President (2005-15). On the external front, Colom-bo also has time to re-evaluate its over-dependence on China—and to a lesser extent, Russia—at the UNHRC, where it has not worked, and not just once.

Given their equations with the West, and India to a lesser extent, the rul-

ing Rajapaksas need to analyze and acknowledge the existing reality and evolve their future strategies accord-ingly. The Rajapaksas have lost three resolutions in a row, from 2012-14—and with the traditional Indian support too. Against this, the predecessor govern-ment of Prime Minister Ranil Wickrem-esinghe (2014-19) managed to stave off UNHRC opprobrium by co-sponsoring a resolution with the West. However, the government initiated only cosmetic changes without taking up the substan-tive clauses—but the West did not ques-tion the then rulers about what looked like wanton laxity and delay.

Powerful messageShorn of the details, and the ‘power-

ful message’ that it entails, Tuesday (23) vote has also actually given Sri Lanka time till the 51st session of the UNHRC, in September 2023, preceded by a writ-ten report at the 49th session in Sep-tember 2022. That is the kind of time the Wickremesinghe government, too, got through the 2018 resolution. The current regime of President Rajapaksa, commencing November 2019, enjoyed at least half the reprieve. By giving Sri Lanka a long rope again, the interna-tional body seems to want to play fair by political rivals in the country, who re-placed each other at the helm.

Going by the text on which the vote was taken, the “resolution requests the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to enhance its monitoring and reporting on the situation of human rights in Sri Lanka, including on progress in reconciliation and accountability, and to present an oral update to the Human Rights Coun-cil at its forty-eighth session, as well as a written update at its forty-ninth ses-sion, and a comprehensive report that includes further options for advancing accountability, at its fifty-first session, both to be discussed in the context of an interactive dialogue”.

By the same token, the “resolution also encourages the Office of the High Commissioner and relevant special pro-cedure mandate holders to provide, in consultation with and with the concur-rence of the Government of Sri Lanka, advice and technical assistance on im-plementing the above-mentioned steps”. All this does not automatically mean that Colombo may be changing tact and track in the coming months to be able to appeal to the West’s sensitivities.

These sensitivities are driven as much by the ‘China angle’ as by allegations of war crimes and human rights violations. Also, independent of the Tamil Dias-pora influence and their vote overseas, there is a huge human rights constitu-ency across the western hemisphere. Sri Lanka, especially the inward-looking Rajapaksas are yet to understand the full import of West Europe’s sentiments on

human rights, flowing from their experi-ences during the Second World War era.

Easy on India nowA touch-and-go vote would have pres-

sured New Delhi to choose between its Sri Lankan neighbour and its post-Cold War western allies. This is so despite the fact that India had outlined its approach at the High-level Dialogue on the ‘zero draft’ or the first draft, presented at the commencement of the session on Febru-ary 22 and introduced the first reference to power-devolution for the Sri Lankan Tamils, through the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution.

Both President Gotabaya and PM Ma-hinda were in constant touch with Indi-an Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the past several weeks. Yet, India denied any firm commitment after Sri Lanka Foreign Secretary Jayanth Colombage claimed that India had promised sup-port. PM Modi was under domestic pres-sure, too, from southern Tamil Nadu, where assembly polls are due on April 6. Both the Opposition DMK and alliance-partner PMK have publicly urged him to vote against Sri Lanka, at times going beyond what the Core Group wanted.

Otherwise, barring rare occasions as in 2012-13 on Sri Lanka, New Delhi has invariably not taken sides with country-specific resolutions of the kind in the past.

Neighbourhood FirstThe Sri Lankan hurt now about India’s

abstention would take time to be touched and felt. But bilateral ties may have al-ready nosedived prior to this, following the Colombo-torpedoed tri-nation ‘ECT deal’ (Eastern Container Terminal), also involving Japan. In this case, even if India had voted for the resolution, Sri Lanka would not have made it. Inciden-tally, Japan, too, abstained from voting. If, however, the West amended the zero draft to include reference to amendment 13-A, it was only to ensure that India, the ‘regional power’, too, signed up on their side. By abstaining still, India has taken an independent stand. Yet, in terms of PM Modi’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, New Delhi stands apart from two of the three voting members from among the total eight SAARC nations. Alongside In-dia, Nepal abstained, while Bangladesh and Pakistan voted against the resolu-tion.

India ceases to be voting member through the next two years, when Sri Lanka will continue to come up be-fore the UNHRC. Yet, with President Biden’s US declaring its desire to re-join the Council after predecessor Donald Trump had walked out in a huff, New Delhi could still have greater leverage, behind-the-scenes, to help Colombo, if the latter is so desirous and also be ac-commodative on the domestic front.

- orfonline.org

This government is stumbling from one crisis to another. Poor economic management, dismal management of COVID-19, and now to disastrous management of foreign diplomatic relations… The vote on the Sri Lanka resolution at the UNHCR showed how few friends we have retained.

This is the lowest point in foreign policy management since the end of the conflict. The present resolution is heavily weighted towards the correc-tion of the infringements of human

rights of the past 16 months over the issues pertaining to the military con-flict that ended over a decade ago.

The government has compounded its policy failures by appointing the wrong persons for defined tasks. The COVID-19 virus containment should have been led by health profession-als and scientists from the outset. Our diplomatic initiatives should have been led by foreign policy profession-als. An urgent fresh appraisal is need-ed to minimize the negative economic

consequences of the resolution. We must not risk legal battles in foreign jurisdictions, travel bans, economic and trade embargoes. The economic consequences will be catastrophic.

A fresh approach will require the implementation of human rights ini-tiatives as identified in Sri Lankan commission reports, where investiga-tions and accountability are dealt with by domestic mechanisms that meets the concerns of the international com-munity.

Arriving at the truth is an essentials part of the healing and reconciliation process.

This coupled with a fresh diplomatic initiative could avert a further eco-nomic and financial crisis within the next couple of years.

We in the opposition will support a progressive fresh initiative in the in-terest of all our people.

- Eran Wickramaratne is the former State Minister of Finance and a member of the current Parliament

By N. Sathiya Moorthy

By Eran Wickramaratne

The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) passed a resolution on promoting reconciliation, accountabil-ity and human rights in Sri Lanka de-spite government opposition. This will allow ongoing monitoring of a situation that has grown worse over the past year, especially for minorities and dissidents, as well as putting the spotlight on past abuses and the needs of the bereaved and survivors.

A Core Group made up of Canada, Germany, Montenegro, Malawi, North-ern Macedonia and the UK drew up the resolution. Twenty two countries voted in favour, with 11 against, includ-ing China, Russia and Pakistan, and 14 abstentions including India. This fol-lowed intensive lobbying both by the Sri Lankan government, which had hoped for a majority against, and some dias-pora groups which had wanted stronger wording. Earlier attempts to persuade President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s regime to cooperate in developing an approach which would offer citizens greater pro-tection against rights violations had failed. Those for and against greater State accountability had sought India’s support. In a statement before the vote, the Indian delegation expressed its sup-port for both the unity, stability and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and for addressing Tamil concerns and guar-anteeing fundamental freedoms and rights for all.

In a brutal civil war that ended in 2009, both state forces and the Tigers had committed multiple abuses. A highly critical report in January 2021 (updated in February) by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mi-chelle Bachelet, pointed out that “Near-ly 12 years since the end of the war, do-mestic initiatives for accountability and reconciliation have repeatedly failed to produce results, more deeply entrench-ing impunity and exacerbating victims’ distrust of the system. Sri Lanka re-mains in a state of denial about the past, with truth-seeking efforts aborted.” What is more, over the past year there had been “clear early warning signs of a deteriorating human rights situation and a significantly heightened risk of future violations.” She called for “strong preventive action.”

In the weeks that followed, although the cruel ban on burials for Muslim COVID-19 victims was finally lifted, in an obvious bid to win over potential critics in the international commu-nity, other aspects of the human rights situation have got worse. The dramatic expansion of prevention of terrorism legislation to allow up to two years de-tention on the vague grounds of causing “religious, racial, or communal dishar-mony” was a further sign of an increas-ingly dictatorial approach.

Against that background, the reso-lution underlined the need for human rights and democracy, including state accountability for its past and present actions. Fulfilment of commitments to devolution, equality and justice was emphasised. The High Commissioner was asked to keep monitoring the situa-tion and report to the next few sessions of the HRC.

If matters become even worse, it is possible that more drastic measures will be called for, although protection by some of the Sri Lankan government’s overseas allies may shield it from some consequences of mistreating the people who it is meant to protect and serve.

The passing of the resolution is a ma-jor diplomatic defeat and puts the spot-light on the regime in a way that will be uncomfortable. The vote may encour-age the government at least to slow the pace of the downward slide from basic norms of human rights. However, a key issue is whether the ruling elite can per-suade a majority of Sinhalese Buddhists that it really cares about their interests, especially amid the social and economic problems made worse by the pandemic.

Against this background, a key chal-lenge for those defending human rights in Sri Lanka and their allies across the world will be to take a consistent ap-proach to human rights for all, pointing out that violations leave all but the most powerful vulnerable. This means taking on the board the varied economic and social as well as political and cultural rights that have been eroded recently or are under threat; breaking down barri-ers that divide and highlighting the hu-man cost to those still waiting to find out what happened to loved ones, or feeling insecure, is important. Rights are not just about principles but about people.

The HRC’s decision opens up possi-bilities. The challenge is to find ways to defend the democratic space which re-mains and seek to build wide commit-ment to a more compassionate and just Sri Lanka.

-groundviews.org

By abstaining from the vote on the UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka, India has signalled its unwillingness to upset its neighbour. At the same time, it does not want to be seen as ignoring Sri Lanka’s reluctance to meet the politi-cal aspirations of the Tamils or endorsing the country’s stub-born refusal to ensure any sort of accountability for its war-time past. It may be easy for the political opposition to dismiss India’s abstention as showing intent to shield Sri Lanka from a credible investigation into al-legations of war crimes. A more reasonable assessment would be that India seems to have utilized the opportunity to preserve its diplomatic space and to contain the pervasive influence of China over Sri Lanka even while main-taining its support for the Tamil minority to achieve equality, justice, dignity and peace.

India has not been comfort-able with externally mandated investigative mechanisms. Even when it voted in 2012 in favour of a credible investigation into human rights, India had got the resolution to incorporate the need for Sri Lanka’s ‘concur-rence’ to any assistance that the Office of the High Commission-er for Human Rights may offer in such a probe. In this session and just ahead of the vote, In-dia stressed on both meaningful devolution to meet Tamil aspi-rations and the unity and integ-rity of Sri Lanka — aspects that it believes are not an ‘either-or’ choice.

The resolution comes amidst disturbing signs that Sri Lanka is regressing into the days of democratic deficit seen prior to the 2015 elections. Unfortunate-ly, the present regime withdrew from the commitments made to the UNHRC by its predeces-sor on constructive engage-ment with the international community, and the consen-sual resolution on justice and accountability. The UN High Commissioner’s report raises concern over increasing mili-tarization, heightened surveil-lance against rights defenders and NGOs, interference with the few prosecutions in emblem-atic cases from the past, and the dangerous anti-minority rhetoric. India’s concerns in Sri Lanka have always been differ-ent from the rest of the interna-tional community, informed by a sense of the long-term well-being of the Tamils, and that power-sharing does foster rec-onciliation. Hence its empha-sis on devolution rather than accountability. It is clear that India has its own limitations in expressing disappointment over the island nation’s move away from reconciliation and devolu-tion. It continues to be weighed down by the Chinese presence in the region. Even the need to be in accord with sentiment in Ta-mil Nadu in the midst of an elec-tion was not motivation enough for India to change its position from tactical neutrality to one of open support for the resolution. When pragmatism and principle were needed in equal measure, the Centre seems to have chosen abstention as an easy way out.

By Savitri Hensman

A resolution for protecting Sri Lankans

Tactical abstention

Prepare for catastrophic economic consequences

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President Gotabaya Ra-japaksa (R) elder broth-er Mahinda Rajapaksa (L) extend traditional greeting after the latter was sworn in as Sri Lan-ka’s new Prime Minister at the sacred Kelaniya Raja Maha Buddhist temple August 9, 2020. The Rajapaksas are yet to understand the full import of West Europe’s sentiments on human rights, flowing from their experiences during the Second World War era

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVEWEEKEND EXPRESS MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 9

The hypocrisy within ‘freedom of speech’Those who defend ‘free speech’ that targets minorities often are less tol-erant of attacks on their own elites

Freedom of speech is a funny old thing. You offend roughly two bil-lion Muslims by publishing a series of crass drawings of the Prophet Mu-hammad and the Western world’s media rush to your defence, uphold-ing your right to insult whomever you choose.

Publish a cartoon showing Queen Elizabeth of Britain kneeling on the neck of actress-turned-duchess Meghan Markle, however, and your former allies turn on you en masse, howling “outrage” and labelling the illustration “appalling”, “disturbing … and wrong on every level”.

Even the schoolboy humorists at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, who are used to upsetting all and sundry, must be wondering where all that ‘Je suis Charlie’ cama-raderie went in the wake of its recent cover depicting the allegations of racism and schisms within the UK’s House of Windsor.

Clearly, Western satirists are much more likely to be celebrated as cham-pions of free speech for attacking minorities within their communities than for picking on one of Europe’s wealthiest and most privileged elites.

Charlie Hebdo first began insulting Muslims in February 2006, when it chose to reprint a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that had been published the previ-ous year by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, adding some of its own for good measure. The staff of

both publications were, of course, aware that doing so would offend Muslims, for whom depictions of any of the prophets – even respectful il-lustrations – are considered forms of idolatry, forbidden in Islam.

At the time, French president Jacques Chirac condemned the pub-lication of the cartoons as an “overt provocation,” adding that “anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided.”

Freedom of speech, in other words, is not the same as the freedom to of-fend gratuitously.

In November 2011, Charlie Hebdo was at it again, renaming itself ‘Char-ia Hebdo’ for one edition, featuring a new cartoon of the Prophet Muham-mad on the cover. Its offices were firebombed. In September 2012, it responded to international outrage over the release of the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims by print-ing a further series of offensive de-pictions of the Prophet, again to of-ficial approbation.

“In France, there is a principle of freedom of expression, which should not be undermined,” said then-for-eign minister Laurent Fabius. “In the present context, given this absurd video that has been aired, strong emotions have been awakened in many Muslim countries. Is it really sensible or intelligent to pour oil on the fire?”

Finally, on January 7, 2015, the magazine’s offices in Paris were at-tacked by Said and Cherif Kouachi, two French-born Algerian brothers

who killed a dozen people, including Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim police of-ficer. The following day, AmedyCou-libaly, a Malian-French acquaintance of the brothers, killed a policewom-an in a Paris suburb. The next day, Coulibaly took hostages at a kosher supermarket, killing four before he was shot dead by police. At almost the same time the Kouachi broth-ers, holed up on an industrial estate northeast of Paris, died in a shootout.

The rush to express solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and to uphold the “right” to freedom of speech was ex-pressed in all-encompassing terms that served mainly to underline the “them and us” attitudes toward mi-norities that lurk just beneath the surface of most Western societies. “We” – that is, the white and (largely notionally) Christian majority – will not give in to “them” – the Islamic extremists who are threatening “our” way of life.

Except, of course, there was, and is, no such threat.

The “threat” was posed by just a handful of deluded, radicalized men and, in any case, was in no real sense any kind of a threat to the fabric of Western society.

Muslims, en masse, were in no way trying to undermine “our way of life.” The vast majority of Muslims – and the vast majority of all minorities in Western states – wish only to as-similate and to improve their lives and the lives of their children. Their response to the cartoons was the re-sponse of all minorities reminded of their marginal status in society – a

sad shaking of the head. Yet the re-sponse to the attacks in Paris in 2015, although provoked by the actions of a mere handful of people, was aimed, without logic or justification, at all Muslims, in much the same way that the offensive cartoons were calculat-ed to offend all Muslims.

The Western media’s response to the Charlie Hebdo tragedies exposed a moral vacuity.

Many media outlets, including The Washington Post, chose to reprint the offensive cartoons, arguing that not to do so was to “give in” to what was widely represented as an as-sault on the precious principle of free speech. This was a worse-than-vac-uous stance, the product of a failure to define the fine line between free speech and a gratuitous offensive-ness that can serve no purpose other than the perpetuation of bigotry and racial hatred.

Now, at least, the Western media are united in their understanding that the cartoon depicting Queen Elizabeth kneeling on Meghan Mar-kle’s neck, evoking the death in 2020 of black American George Floyd un-der the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, is an outrage that simply goes too far.

Time for a new Internet meme, then, surely? “Je suis Charlie – as long as he’s picking on Muslims.”

Jonathan Gornall is a British journalist, formerly with The Times,

who has lived and worked in the Middle East and is now based in the UK, and this is a Syndication

Bureau article

As early as 2002, the UN correspond-ent of the Los Angeles Times, Mag-gie Farley, noted that more than a hundred UN resolutions were being violated,and that in many cases, en-forcement of resolutions was blocked by the US or its allies.

She made this observation based on a 15-year review of compliance with UN resolutions done by the Universi-ty of San Francisco Professor Stephen Zunes, who had concluded that com-pliance depended on the influence of each State and its backers. The more powerful the backer, the less the chance of compliance, he said, noting the countries which did comply were made to do by a powerful country or a set of powerful countries through sheer coercion, economic or military or both.

For a start, UN resolutions are not binding, and if they are, as in the case of some Security Council resolutions, the powers-that-be might not enforce them for economic, political or geo-political reasons. Between 1967 and 2002, Israel had violated 31 resolu-tions. Twelve of them related to the ‘Fourth Geneva Convention for Oc-cupying Powers’ on deportations, demolitions of homes and seizure of property.

While the US went to war with Iraq for violating UN resolutions, it would not envisage war against Israel to en-force the same. In fact, the US had used the veto several times to block resolutions on Israel and in 2018,quit the UNHRC complaining against its bias against Israel.

When Turkey was an ally of the US, it was able to defy UN Security Council resolutions on its troop de-ployment in Cyprus. Morocco flouted resolutions seeking withdrawal of its

forces from Western Sahara and al-low a referendum there on self-deter-mination.

The UN Charter authorizes military action for the enforcement of Chap-ter 7 resolutions. But military inter-ventions have proved to be difficult because of inadequate commitment from member states. The UN action in Bosnia-Herzegovina proved to be disastrous because of this.

The UN has also shown its incompe-tence in implementing resolutions on North Korea. In their article in jour-nal of the ‘Institute for Science and international Security’ in 2018,David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, Allison Lach, and Andrea Stricker say that 52 countries were involved in violating UNSC Resolutions on North Korea throughout most of 2017.

US President Donald Trump threat-ened to withhold “billions” of dollars of US aid from countries voting in fa-vour of a UN resolution rejecting his recognition of Jerusalem as the capi-tal of Israel. But despite the warning, 128 members voted to maintain the longstanding international consensus that the status of Jerusalem (claimed as a capital by both Israel and Pales-tine) can only be settled as an agreed final issue in a peace deal. Neverthe-less, despite the UN resolution, in May 2018, the US went ahead and re-classified its Jerusalem Consulate as the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

The US also vetoed a UN Security Council resolutionthat condemned Israel’s use of force against Palestin-ian civilians. At least 116 Palestin-ians were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza border protests since the end of March 2018.

Any UN body can pass a resolution. But they are generally not binding.

But even those which are biding are either imperfectly implemented or not implemented at all .The Security Council is charged with the mainte-nance of international peace and se-curity. The UNSC comprises 15 mem-bers, five permanent (Russia, the UK, France, China and the US) and ten non-permanent members, elected on a regional basis to serve two- year terms. Permanent members can veto any substantive UNSC resolution.

Security Council Resolution 1373, which was adopted unanimously on September 28, 2001, was a counter-terrorism measure passed following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. The resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and is therefore binding on all UN member states.If the US has been complying with this, it is be-cause it is directly affected by terror-ism since the 9/11 attack.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)has beenun-successfully trying to extend the ju-risdiction of the International Crimi-nal Court (ICC) to Sri Lanka, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. However, a Sri Lankan human rights violation case can be brought to the ICC if the UN Security Council re-solves to do so. But in the UNSC, Sri Lanka is by supported two veto wield-ing powers, China and Russia.

It is pointed that following the re-cent UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka, any member State can file a case against a Sri Lankan national on human rights or war crimes grounds. But here again, it is argued that the political interests of nations will play a determining role.

It is noteworthy that most cases brought before the ICC relate to poor

and backward countries which have no political influence in the world.Thus far, 45 individuals have been indicted in the ICC. The list includes Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Ivor Coast President Lau-rent Gbagbo, and DR Congo Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba. The over-representation of Africa and the total absence of the developed coun-tries in the ICC cases are noteworthy.

While on the one hand, Western na-tions are itching to prosecute soldiers from the developing countries on war crimes charges, they themselves are enacting laws to prevent the prosecu-tion of their soldiers for war crimes committed abroad.

The British House of Commons recently adopted a Bill to prevent ‘vexatious’ prosecutions of British military personnel and veterans over war crimes allegations. The prosecu-tion of British soldiers for alleged past crimes in Northern Ireland, and more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghani-stan, has dogged the country’s mili-tary and government for years. Sri Lanka is contemplating a similar pro-tective law in view of the UNHRC’s bid to prosecute its soldiers, Educa-tion Minister and Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) spokesman, Prof. G.L.Peries, told the media recently.

By P. K. Balachandran

By Jonathan Gornall

Could an Arab party break

the deadlock?

JERUSALEM — After a fourth Israeli election in two years appears to have ended in another stalemate, leaving many Israelis feeling trapped in an endless loop, there was at least one surprising result Wednesday (24): An Arab political party has emerged as a potential kingmaker.

Even more surprising, the party was Raam, an Islamist group with roots in the same religious movement as Hamas, the militant group that runs the Gaza Strip. For years, Raam was rarely interested in working with the Israeli leadership and, like most Arab parties, was ostracized by its Jewish counterparts.

But according to the latest vote count, Raam’s five seats hold the balance of power between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya-hu’s right-wing bloc and the motley alliance of parties that seeks to end his 12 years in power. The vote tally is not final, and Raam has previously suggested it would only sup-port a government from the outside.

Still, even the possibility of Raam playing a deciding role in the formation of a coali-tion government is making waves in Israel. An independent Arab party has never been part of an Israeli government, although some Arab lawmakers supported Yitzhak Rabin’s government from the outside in the 1990s. Suddenly in a position of influence, Raam has promised to back any group that offers something suitable in return to Isra-el’s Arab minority, who are descended from the Palestinians who stayed after Israel’s creation in 1948 and who today form about 20% of the population.

“I hope to become a key man,” Mansour Abbas, the party’s leader, said in a televi-sion interview Wednesday. In the past, he added, mainstream parties “were exclud-ing us, and we were excluding ourselves. Today, Raam is at least challenging the po-litical system. It is saying, ‘Friends, we exist here’.”

The party is not in “anyone’s pocket”, he added. “I am not ruling out anyone, but if someone rules us out, then we will of course rule him out.”

Either way would make for a strange partnership.

If Raam backed Netanyahu’s opponents, it would likely need to work with a right-wing opposition leader, Avigdor Liberman, who has described some Arab citizens as traitors and called for them to leave the country.

If it supported the Netanyahu-led bloc, Raam would be working with a prime min-ister who enacted legislation that down-graded the status of the Arabic language and said that only Jews had the right to determine the nature of the Israeli state. In a previous election, Netanyahu warned of high Arab turnout as a threat to encourage his own supporters to vote.

Raam would also be cooperating with an alliance that includes far-right politicians who want to expel Arab citizens of Israel they deem “disloyal” to the Israeli state. One of those politicians, Itamar Ben Gvir, until recently hung in his home a picture of a Jewish extremist who murdered 29 Pal-estinian Muslims in a West Bank mosque in 1994. But Abbas is prepared to consider these possible associations because he be-lieves it is the only way for Arab citizens to secure government support in the fight against the central problems assailing the Arab community — gang violence, poverty and restrictions on their access to housing, land and planning permission.

In the past, “Arab politicians have been onlookers in the political process in Israel,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in February. Today, he added, “Arabs are looking for a real role in Israeli politics.”

The move would mark the culmination of a gradual process in which Arab parties and voters have grown incrementally more involved in the electoral process.

Raam, a Hebrew acronym that stands for the United Arab List, is affiliated with a branch of an Islamist movement that for years did not participate in Israeli elec-tions. Raam was founded in 1996 after some members of that movement voted by a narrow margin to run for Parliament, an event that split the movement in two. The other branch, which Israel has outlawed and whose leader it has jailed, does not par-ticipate in elections. Raam later joined the Joint List, a larger Arab political alliance that emerged as the third-largest party in three recent Israeli elections, in a sign of the Arab minority’s growing political sway.

Recognizing this increased importance of Arab voters, Netanyahu canvassed hard for their support during the recent election campaign.

Analysts had long predicted that an Arab party would eventually end up working in or alongside the government. But few thought that an Arab party would counte-nance working with the Israeli right. Fewer still imagined that party would be a con-servative Islamist group like Raam.

-New York Times

By Patrick Kingsley and Adam Rasgon

Israel’s election ended in another mess

Realpolitiks and the compliance of UN resolutions

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Supporters of Islamist party Tehreek-e-Lab-baik Pakistan shout slo-gans during a protest against the reprinting of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by French magazine Char-lie Hebdo, in Karachi on September 4, 2020

10 MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 WEEKEND EXPRESS

GENDER PERSPECTIVEGENDER PERSPECTIVE

The Sri Lankan woman and unpaid care work

Disparate housewives

Sunimalee Madurawala, Research Econo-mist and Specialist in Gender Studies, Insti-tute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka answers four pertinent questions on why social per-ceptions on the role of women must change.

Question 1: How has the COVID-19 out-break impacted women and SDG5 on gender equality from both a global and local perspective?Answer: The COVID-19 pandemic has dis-rupted the lives of people across the world but not everyone has been affected in the same way. Past experiences of disease out-breaks and other crises show that men and women, boys and girls are affected differ-ently. In most contexts, women and girls are disproportionately impacted, and girls and women pay a higher social and economic toll. This is mainly because of their relatively dis-advantaged situation, and distinct social ob-ligations and responsibilities. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception and is exacerbating existing gender inequalities in many areas.

The effects of the pandemic have already derailed progress made towards achieving gender equality (SDG5). The labour market, health, education, nutrition and food secu-rity, and safety are some of those areas facing setbacks due to the pandemic. The negative impacts can be expected to widen (i.e., more individuals are affected) and deepen (i.e. the conditions of some individuals worsen) the already unfavourable situation.

Question 2: Although women account for 52% of the population, Sri Lan-ka’s female labour force participation (FLFP) rate has stagnated at between 30-35% for the last two decades. What does this low FLFP mean in terms of fe-male empowerment, and also from an economic point of view?Answer: FLFP is important for an economy for many reasons. It indicates the utilization of labour in an economy and it also acts as a signal of the economic empowerment of women.

The low level FLFP rate and higher female unemployment rate imply that the economy is not utilizing its economic resources (la-bour) at full potential and the investments made on them do not generate the expected economic returns to the country.

Research indicates that eliminating gen-der discrimination in job opportunities and pay increases not just women’s income but also national income. Raising female employ-ment levels has a direct, positive impact on GDP. Further, women who are better educat-ed, healthier, and have greater control over household financial resources are also more likely to invest in their children’s health and education—an investment in the workforce of tomorrow.

Sri Lankan women are well equipped with the skills to contribute to the country’s economic growth. They are highly literate, comparatively more educated, and healthy. Despite this, their economic participation levels and their contributions to the coun-try’s growth is not on par with their potential. Removing the barriers that prevent women’s economic participation is pivotal to create an ‘enabling environment’ for women so that they could participate more in economic ac-tivities.

Question 3: Women currently repre-sent a mere 5.3% – 12 out of 225 legis-lators – in the Sri Lankan Parliament. What explains the gross under-repre-sentation of women in policymaking and leadership positions?Answer: Despite women’s the gains in edu-cation and employment over the years, men still outnumber women in leadership, espe-cially in top positions. This can be observed from the local to the national level. There are several reasons for this gap.

The widespread public perception that politics is a male domain and that a woman entering politics is transgressing her proper role in society is the main reason. Other rea-sons include the lack of recognition for fe-male leadership, lack of support from family members and community, inability to spend enough time and space on public affairs due to family responsibilities, reluctance to spend money on politics as women mostly occupy jobs that tend to have a lower status and pay, and the climate of violence characterised by thuggery and intimidation discourage wom-en from entering politics.

Question 4: What strategies, mecha-nisms or policies can be implemented to advance gender equity in the coun-try?Answer: Strategies, mechanisms or policies that are ‘gender transformative’ are needed. This means that having policies which ad-dress the causes of gender-based inequali-ties and work to transform harmful gender roles, norms and relations. It is also impor-tant to recognise and accept the differences of women from different backgrounds and to acknowledge the fact that a blanket approach is not effective in solving their problems in the long run.

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Women make up 52% of Sri Lanka’s population, out of which, according to the Census and Statistics Department (2019), only 35.4% are considered to be ‘Economically Active’ and included in the labour force. Of the 73.7% of women who are considered to be ‘Eco-nomically Inactive’ or not contributing to the national economy, 62.4% are categorized as ‘Engaged in Housework’ and are not recognized as contribut-ing to the economy. The labour force is defined by an assessment of an indi-vidual’s labour that contributes to the economy of a country. Work performed in one’s household, housework, is not recognized as being of economic value. Even though these household activi-ties directly or vicariously contribute to the economic status and develop-ment of the families and of the country, mainstream economic institutions that measure labour force participation do not take these factors into considera-tion.

Care work is essential for the well-be-ing of a country’s citizenry and its eco-nomic development. However, it can be seen that a majority of the unpaid care work is shouldered by women. Child-care, education, eldercare, caring for the sick, home gardening, cooking, col-lecting materials essential for cooking such as water and firewood are all done mainly by women and girl children. All work such as these, done without a monetary value assigned can be consid-ered unpaid care work. While it is the majority of women who engage in and expend their labour towards unpaid care work every day in their households and communities, this factor is not giv-en due recognition by our society.

It is problematic that this work done by women is neither recognized for its economic value nor is it assigned a monetary value by relevant authorities.

Historically, girl children have been trained and moulded to do household and care work far more than their male counterparts. This is a result of the male dominant and patriarchal struc-tures that have continued to this day. Through this, girl-children are often brought up to give priority to compe-tency in housework over other skills and interests.

Over the last six decades, despite the fact that more women have been taking on self-employment or ventured out of the home and engaged in paid labour, they are still expected to shoulder un-paid care work at home.

Although these women may receive some help from their husbands or fam-ily members from time to time, most men and boys are not socialized to en-gage in household work.

Where males, husbands or sons do share housework, instead of appreci-ating this engagement, society tends to look at them with disdain. What is overlooked is the fact that household work or care work is not the responsi-bility of one sex or the other but that it is the responsibility of all individuals and is a life skill that we must all pos-sess.

There needs to be a redefining of what realistically constitutes the labour force, and also highlighting the fact that men must take more responsibility for work in the home. While both men and women contribute to the development of the country, unpaid care work must be given a higher recognition in soci-ety and that change needs to begin at home.

The extent and nature of a woman’s unpaid care work depends on factors such as the community, city or village she lives in, the number of members in the household, elderly and/or differ-ently-abled members in the household, number of children and household in-come level. Availability of social ser-vices and support systems that women, and men, can access are also important factors.

Hence, recognizing unpaid care work, and creating change in society accompanied by investment in the pro-vision of care services will contribute to the social, economic and political upliftment of many women. If women are unable to attend to care work for any length of time, its effect on the fam-ily, the community, and the country’s economy is something to reflect upon.

If a maid is employed to attend to household work, she is paid a wage and as an employee, defined as contribut-ing to the economy, included the labour force. However, a woman, whether she is in paid employment or not, but fulfils all the care work in her home for her family, she is not included in the labour force, and her efforts are written off as her ‘responsibility as a woman’. This is not to say that work in the home should necessarily be compensated monetarily but rather that it needs to be assigned an economic value and these women need to be included in the labour force.

By signing on the Sustainable Devel-opment Goals (SDGs), the Sri Lankan government agreed to recognize unpaid care work included in Goal 5. In 2020, the Department of Census and Statis-tics released a report of a study on Time Use Survey.

The study recorded that it is indeed a much larger number of women, com-pared to men, who spend more time in household work. However, there has been little or no policy or public discus-sion on these findings.

Sri Lanka currently does not have a Cabinet Level Ministry or Minister for Women’s Affairs, which would be the highest level institution to take forward the women’s rights and gender equality agenda.

For example, even though many women spend up to 18 hours a day en-gaged in unpaid care work, there is little focus on directing government funds or for public private partnerships to be-gin the work of providing accessible, affordable and adequate day-care cen-tres, eldercare centres, and other public services to lessen the burden that these women bear.

There is also poor investment in sup-port services for families with disabled adults or children.

The Women and Media Col-lective (WMC) carried out a scriptwriting competition un-der the themes ‘Housework is Work: Value the Unpaid Care Work done by Women’ in 2020. This included a work-shop for selected scriptwrit-ers, followed by a short film competition based on these film scripts.

Men and women from all ethnic and religious com-munities had an opportunity to start a discussion on gen-der equality and unpaid care work through these competi-tions.

In addition to this, an Art Competition for Children was also held on the theme ‘How I understand Housework’. The COVID-19 pandemic forced children to stay at home for a long period of time. Dur-ing periodic lockdowns, most household members had to stay at home. These factors resulted in women having to shoulder an even a higher burden of the care work at home.

In order to start discus-sions on this theme, the art competition invited the age groups 8-10, 11-13, and 14-16 to submit their art work. WMC received almost 200 submissions from children around the country.

A prize-giving for the win-ning contestants of these competitions will be held on Monday (29) at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute from 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – where WMC will screen the shortlisted short films, and display the winning submis-sions at an art exhibition.

These events will be fol-lowed by the screening of a Malayali film by Director Jeo Baby ‘The Great Indian Kitchen.

All those interested are welcome. Entrance is free and strict Covid health guidelines will be followed. In order to register for this event, please register through this link- https://forms.gle/7Ez5PwyJzVXD7a6j7

Raising awareness through media: Short Films and Childrens’ Art

LITERARY LIVES11WEEKEND EXPRESS MARCH 26 - 28, 2021

Sir Christopher Ondaatje concludes his two part series that brings to life the passions of the 19th

century French novelist and playwright, best known for his linked fictions La Comédie Humaine

that presented a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, with an edited version of one of his best

loved short stories – A Passion in the Desert - an unusual love story between man and beast

Honoré de Balzac - May 1799 – August 1850

RIP

Part ll “True love is eternal, infinite, and always like

itself.It is equal and pure, without violent demon-

strations:It is seen with white hairs and is always young

in the heart.”- Honoré de Balzac

When he felt sure of having extinguished the ferocity of his capricious companion, whose hunger had so fortunately been satisfied the day before, he got up to go out of the cave; the pan-ther let him go out, but when he had reached the summit of the hill she sprang with the lightness of a sparrow, and rubbed herself against his legs, putting up her back after the manner of all the race of cats. Then regarding her guest with eyes whose glare had softened a little, she gave vent to that wild cry, which naturalists compare to the grating of a saw.

He was bold enough to play with her ears; he caressed her belly and scratched her head as hard as he could. When he saw that he was successful, he tickled her skull with the point of his dagger, watching for the right moment to kill her, but the hardness of her bones made him tremble for his success. It suddenly occurred to the soldier that to kill this savage princess with one blow he must poniard her in the throat.

He raised the blade, when the panther, satis-fied no doubt, laid herself gracefully at his feet, and cast up at him glances in which, in spite of their natural fierceness, was mingled confusedly a kind of good will. The poor Provencal ate his dates, leaning against one of the palm trees, and casting his eyes alternately on the desert in quest of some liberator and on his terrible companion to watch her uncertain clemency.

She examined the man with an almost com-mercial prudence. However, this examination was favourable to him, for when he had finished his meagre meal she licked his boots with her powerful rough tongue, brushing off with mar-vellous skill the dust gathered in the creases.

The soldier began to measure curiously the proportions of the panther, certainly one of the most splendid specimens of its race. She was three feet high and four feet long. The cold cru-elty was dominant, but there was a vague resem-blance to the face of a sensual woman.

The soldier tried if he might walk up and down, and the panther left him free, contenting herself with following him with her eyes, observing eve-rything and every movement of her master.

When he looked around, he saw the remains of his horse; the panther had dragged the carcass all that way; about two thirds of it had been de-voured already.

He returned to her, and had the unspeakable joy of seeing her wag her tail with an almost im-perceptible movement at his approach. He sat down then, without fear, by her side, and they be-gan to play together; he took her paws and muz-zle, pulled her ears, rolled her over on her back, and stroked her warm, delicate flanks. She let him do whatever he liked, and when he began to

stroke the hair on her feet she drew her claws in carefully.

The man, keeping the dagger in one hand, thought to plunge it into the belly of the too con-fiding panther, but he felt in his heart a sort of remorse, which bid him respect a creature that had done him no hard. He thought of his first sweetheart, ‘Mignonne’, because she was so atro-ciously jealous all the time of their love.

This memory of his early days suggested to him the idea of making the young panther answer to this name. At last his companion had got into the habit of looking up at him whenever he cried in a falsetto voice, “Mignonne”.

At the setting of the sun Mignonne gave, sev-eral times running, a profound melancholy cry. “I’ll let you go to bed first,” he said to her, count-ing on the activity of his own legs to run away as quickly as possible, directly she was asleep.

The soldier waited with impatience the hour of his flight, and when it had arrived he walked vigorously in the direction of the Nile; but hardly had he made a quarter of a league in the sand when he heard the panther bounding after him, crying with that saw-like cry more dreadful even than the sound of her leaping.

“Ah!” he said, “... she has never met anyone be-fore, and it is really quite flattering to have her first love.” That instant the man fell into one of those movable quicksand’s so terrible to traveller and from which it is impossible to save oneself. Feeling him caught, he gave a shriek of alarm; the panther seized him with her teeth by the collar, and, springing vigorously backwards, drew him as if by magic out of the whirling sand.

“Ah, Mignonne!” cried the soldier, caressing her enthusiastically; “We’re bound together for life and death!” and he retraced his steps.

From that time the desert seemed inhabited. It contained a beast to whom the man could talk, and whose ferocity was rendered gentle by him. Great as the soldier’s desire to stay upon guard, he slept. On awakening he could not find Mi-gnonne; he mounted the hill, and in the distance saw her springing toward him after the habit of these animals, who cannot run of account of the extreme flexibility of the vertebral column. Mi-gnonne arrived, her jaws covered with blood; she received the wonted caress of her companion.

“Ah! Mademoiselle, you are a nice girl, aren’t you? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? So you have been eating some Arab or other? That doesn’t matter. They’re animals just the same as you are.

Some days passed in this manner. This com-panionship permitted the Provencal to appreci-ate the sublime beauty of the desert; now that he had a living thing to think about, alternation of fear and quiet, and plenty to eat.

At last he grew passionately fond of the pan-ther; for some sort of affection was a necessity.

Whether it was that his will powerfully project-ed had modified the character of his companion,

or whether, because she found abundant food in her predatory excursions in the desert, she respected the man’s life, he began to fear for it no longer, seeing her so well tamed. He devoted the greater part of his time to sleep, but he was obliged to watch like a spider in its web that the moment of his deliverance might not escape him.

It was during the long hours, when he had abandoned hope, that he amused himself with the panther. He had come to learn the different inflections of her voice, the expressions of her eyes; he had studied the capricious patterns of all the rosettes which marked the gold of her robe. Mignonne was not even angry when he took hold of the tuft at the end of her tail to count her rings, those graceful ornaments which glittered in the sun like jewellery. It gave him pleasure to con-template the supple, fine outlines of her form, the whiteness of her belly, the graceful pose of her head. But it was especially when she was playing that he felt most pleasure in looking at her; the agility and youthful lightness of her movements were a continual surprise to him; he wondered at the supple way in which she jumped and climbed, washed herself and arranged her fur, crouched down and prepared to spring. However rapid her spring might be, however slippery the stone she was on, she would always stop short at the word “Mignonne”.

But there was such youth and grace in her form! She was beautiful as a woman! The blond fur of her robe mingled well with the delicate tints of faint white which marked her flanks.

The profuse light cast down by the sun made this living gold, these russet marking, to burn in a way to give them an indefinable attraction.

The man and the panther looked at one anoth-er with a look full of meaning; the coquette quiv-ered when she felt her friend stroke her head; her eyes flashed like lightning – then she shut them tightly.

* * *“But how did two so well adapted to under-

stand each other end?”

They ended as all great passions do end – by a misunderstanding.

The Provencal didn’t know if he hurt her, but the panther turned round, as if enraged, and with her sharp teeth caught hold of his leg – gently, but thinking she would devour him – he plunged his dagger into her throat. She rolled over, giv-ing a cry that froze his heart; and saw her dying, still looking at him without anger. He would have given all the world to have brought her to life again. It was as though he had murdered a real person; and the soldiers who had come to his assistance, found him in tears.

-End

George Segal, whose long career began in se-rious drama but who became one of America’s most reliable and familiar comic actors, first in the movies and later on television, died Tuesday (23) in Santa Rosa, California. He was 87.

The cause was complications of bypass sur-gery, according to his wife, Sonia Segal.

Sandy-haired, conventionally if imperfectly handsome, with a grin that could be charming or smug and a brow that could knit with sincer-ity or a lack of it, Segal walked a line between leading man and supporting actor.

To younger people, he was best known for his work in comedy ensembles on prime-time net-work shows, playing the publisher of a fashion magazine on ‘Just Shoot Me!’ and a frolicsome grandfather on ‘The Goldbergs’, a raucous fam-ily show set in the 1980s.

But decades earlier, when he was a rising young actor, a handful of dramatic roles placed him on the verge of A-list stardom.

In 1965 he starred as a conniving American corporal in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in ‘King Rat’, a grim survival drama based on a novel by James Clavell. The same year he played an idealistic painter whose agonizing and prob-ably doomed love affair with a beautiful bour-geois young woman (Elizabeth Ashley) was one of several plotlines in Stanley Kramer’s adapta-tion of Katherine Anne Porter’s novel ‘Ship of Fools’, which places a buffet of class and ethnic conflicts aboard a German passenger ship on a trans-Atlantic crossing in the 1930s.

From 1966 to 1968, Segal starred in three dramas adapted for television. In ‘The Des-perate Hours’, he played Glenn Griffin, an es-caped convict who holds a family hostage, a role made famous by Paul Newman on Broadway and Humphrey Bogart in the movies. In John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’, he was George, the itinerant farm-worker who looks out for his friend Lenny (Nicol Williamson), a childlike behemoth. And he was Biff Loman, the elder son of Willy Loman (Lee J. Cobb, repeating his Broadway role), in ‘Death of a Salesman’, Ar-thur Miller’s masterpiece of a warped and failed American dream.

In his best-remembered and best-rewarded dramatic role, Segal played Nick, the young husband in the film ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ (1966), adapted from Edward Albee’s gruelling depiction of marital combat.

The movie, directed by Mike Nichols, fa-mously starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as an embittered, long-time campus couple harbouring a mutual delusion who en-gage in a scabrous war of words over the course of a long, boozy night in which they entertain a newly arrived biology professor (Segal) and his wife (Sandy Dennis). All four actors were nomi-nated for Oscars, Segal for the only time. (The women won.)

Beginning in the late 1960s, however, Segal’s gift for comedy, especially social satire, redi-rected his career. He spent most of the decade as a leading man in films aiming at both hu-mour and poignancy in their observations on romance, marriage, friendship, class and the meaningful life.

In ‘Bye Bye Braverman’ (1968), directed by Sidney Lumet, Segal played a public relations man in the throes of contemplating mortality, one of four Jewish intellectuals attending a mu-tual friend’s unexpected funeral.

In ‘No Way to Treat a Lady’ (1968), an arch thriller, he played a detective being pestered by his mother (Eileen Heckart) to get married as he tracks a mother-obsessed serial killer (Rod Steiger). And in ‘Loving’ (1970), one of his many films in which adultery was a theme, he played a freelance illustrator in career and marital crisis.

Segal was among Hollywood’s busiest and most recognizable actors in the 1970s, appear-ing in films whose comedy and outlook, some-times strikingly out of whack with today’s sensi-bility, were characteristic of the decade.

He starred with Ruth Gordon in ‘Where’s Poppa?’ (1970), Carl Reiner’s outlandish farce about a man determined to rid himself of his mother; opposite Barbra Streisand as a neb-bish writer involved with a prostitute in ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ (1970); and with Robert Redford in a manic crime caper, ‘The Hot Rock’ (1972).

In ‘Fun With Dick and Jane’ (1979), Segal and Jane Fonda starred as a pair of odd anti-heroes, an affluent married couple whose debt-depend-ent life together is threatened when he loses his job as an aerospace engineer and they turn to crime to support the budget to which they had grown accustomed.

‘Dick and Jane’ underscored Segal’s strength as a comic actor; he was at his best in give-and-take roles, as a co-star.

George Segal Jr. was born in New York City on Feb. 13, 1934, to George and Fanny (Bodkin) Segal and grew up in Great Neck, on Long Is-land.

His father was a malt and hops dealer. Young George played trombone as a boy and was pro-ficient enough on the banjo to play in jazz bands in college and afterward. He also performed magic tricks at children’s parties.

-New York Times

A loved beyond comprehension George Segal, the durable veteran of drama and TV comedy

A scene from the movie version of A Passion in the Desert starring Ben Daniels as the Provencal

An 1850 Caricature of Balzac by Nadar

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12 MARCH 26 - 28, 2021 WEEKEND EXPRESS

SPORTSSPORTS

Who is running cricket in the country - Namal or Mahela?Pathum Nissanka defies the odds in his biggest testA former Sri Lanka rugby star confid-

ed that the previous National Sports Council (NSC) was just a talking shop where proposals were discussed but no follow-up action taken declaring it was a waste of time. In contrast, the current NSC headed by former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardena and comprising another cricket legend Kumar Sangakkara, in addition to sev-eral eminent personalities related to sports, have infused a dynamic hands-on approach. Their main task is to ad-vise Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa on matters connected to developing sports in the country.

The NSC which also comprises swimming legend Julian Bolling, double international Kasthuri Wilson and international lawyer Rowena Sa-marasinghe among others have been appointed for two years. But in their eagerness to fast track sports develop-ment in the country, the Council may

be overstepping their boundary and causing a conflict of interest especially when it comes to matters related to cricket.

It is an open secret that cricket icons Jayawardene and Sangakkara have a love-hate relationship with the admin-istration of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), which is not a paragon of virtue. But a national sports federation needs some independence if it is to run smoothly or be held accountable for their failures. Constantly interfering in the way SLC is managed undermines the authority of individuals running the sport.

Accepted there is a need to restruc-ture SLC and the first-class system in the country. But adhoc tinkering with decisions made by the SLC espe-cially with hustings around the corner smacks of politicking. Mahela seems to be calling the shots, getting his way in advising the minister to appoint a Technical Advisory Committee for

cricket headed by another former Sri Lanka great Aravinda de Silva. This panel has been absorbed by SLC as their Cricket Committee.

But the national cricket selection committee is like a headless chicken following the resignation of Ashan-tha de Mel after their defeats in four consecutive Tests against South Africa and England. Nominations for the va-cant slot made by SLC have not been approved by the minister. It begs the question who is responsible for the se-lections made for the ongoing series in the Caribbean.

The conflict of interest has also arisen because NSC chairman Ma-hela is Director of Cricket of premier club SSC, which still wield influence when it comes to national selections, although they are not the top perform-ing team in the domestic circuit. There have been accusations that SSC are poaching outstanding players from so-

called smaller clubs with a promise of national representation. The delay in finalizing the national selection com-mittee may be a result of arm-twisting going on between the leading club and SLC.

Sports Minister Rajapaksa is privy to the tug-o-war between Mahela and the SLC but is reluctant to appoint an in-terim committee to administer cricket despite Colts and Bloomfield protest-ing that the administration has run its term, ostensibly declaring that he doesn’t want to politicise cricket. On the contrary, SLC is steeped in politics with vote-buying going on apace in the guise of development ahead of annual elections in May. By delaying key ap-pointments such as selectors it is the performance of the national team that will suffer. Otherwise the ministry and the NSC should allow SLC to run its course without pulling the rug.

-ENCL

Okay stop. Inhale. Pinch yourself. There are stories of a megaship stuck sideways in the Suez Canal. Niroshan Dickwella has batted responsibly. And a Sri Lankan debutant has hit a Test hundred. It’s been a weird day. Is any of this real? Are we in a fever dream?

Sri Lanka batsmen fresh out of the domestic system just don’t do things like hit hundreds away from home in their second Test innings. They are not equipped to.

The island’s first-class structure is a monument to incompetence and self-serving administration - obese with 24 teams, beset by pitches on which finger spinner’s pile up wickets like gardeners raking leaves after an af-ternoon thunderstorm, strung up oc-casionally by fixing allegations, and weakened by an annual exodus of sen-ior pros preferring to try their luck in clubs overseas.

For years, young Sri Lanka batsmen have been complaining that the gap between domestic cricket and interna-tionals was an ever-widening chasm. It had been 20 years since Sri Lanka had a debutant centurion (Thilan Sa-maraweera having been the last, in 2001).

And yet, there Pathum Nissanka was, through the end of day three and much of day four, quelling the kind of pace-heavy attack he would almost never have faced at home, defusing the Dukes ball’s seam movement on a quicker, bouncier track than he is accustomed to, trusting his defence, riding out spells, picking his scoring opportunities.

It had to have helped that of all the batsmen who have graduated from domestic cricket, Nissanka has had the best recent track record - his first-class average of 67.54 not just the best among Sri Lanka batsmen, but the best in the world among current Test cricketers.

Still, this is not a Shield average, or a Ranji average or even a county aver-age. Decent batsmen score heavily in Sri Lanka’s Premier League Tourna-ments. This is not new. Then they ar-rive at the top level and well… it’s usu-ally not pretty.

Early in this Antigua innings, Ni-ssanka was fixated on survival. He didn’t score until he faced his 21st ball, and he proceeded with extreme, self-denying caution after that, making just 18 from his first 70 deliveries. Only when West Indies’ bowlers erred seri-ously in line, did he venture bounda-ries - all square of the wicket - and only six in total, in a 252-ball stay.

Even this was a departure; a mature acknowledgement that he wasn’t flay-ing spin at the Nondescripts Cricket Club grounds anymore, because al-though his defence is highly rated, he is far from dour in domestic cricket - his strike rate up at 69 in the last first-class season; 76 the season before that. In both those seasons he had averaged around 90.

Even when he became more com-fortable at the crease, Nissanka was aiming for immovable, rather than dominant.

There were occasional close calls: one under-edge against Shannon Ga-brial bounced centimetres short of the wicketkeeper’s gloves, plus at least two edges wide of slip. But although West Indies rifled through several plans of attack, Nissanka was never shaken out of his single-mindedness. Through the course of his 179-run sixth wicket stand with Dickwella, Nissanka fre-quently seemed like the senior part-ner.

It is tempting to crown him Sri Lanka’s next great batting hope, the way Dinesh Chandimal, or Kusal Men-dis once had been. But now that he is known in Test cricket, tougher exami-nations of his technique are about to begin.

His weaknesses, of which there are bound to be some given the system from which he hails, will be exposed. It’s too soon to get hype, even if there was a promise of more to come in his no-big-deal century celebration.

For now, it’s enough that Nissanka has had a taste of success at the high-est level, And that in Antigua he has set his team up to push for a win.

-Andrew Fidel Fernando Sri Lanka corresponded for

ESPNcricinfo where this article was originally featured

By The Line Judge

By Andrew Fidel FernandoCOUNTER PUNCH

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