International Affairs

Establishing a dedicated capacity at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to collect and preserve evidence about grave rights violations in Sri Lanka will cost an estimated $ 2 million, UNHRC member states were informed this week.

Ambassador Dr. Palitha Kohona met with China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Luo Zhaohui on 3 March.

Second official from ousted Myanmar de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy has died in custody as protests in defiance of the country’s new military government continue.

The European Union's drug regulator, the Europe Medicines Agency (EMA), has given conditional approval to Johnson & Johnson's single dose COVID-19 vaccine.

The head of the World Health Organization has emphasized the need for global coordination in working to end the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking to VOA Africa's Linord Moudou via Sky, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said equitable distribution of the vaccine is key. Below is an edited transcript.

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට ලබාදීමට එකඟ වූ කොවිඩ් එන්නත් මාත්‍රා මිලියනය ප්‍රමාදයකින් තොරව ලබාදෙන බව ඉන්දීය සීරම් ආයතනය රාජ්‍ය ඖෂධ නීතිගත සංස්ථාවට ඊයේ (8 වැනිදා) දැනුම් දී තිබේ.

The U.N. secretary-general said Thursday that more than 88 million people were suffering from acute hunger in countries affected by conflict and instability at the end of 2020, and at least 34 million of them face possible famine this year.

More women continue to enter politics and government at the highest levels, but there is still widespread gender inequality globally for women in government and legislatures, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations said Wednesday.

Sri Lanka says it tried a cocktail of mechanisms to negotiate with the LTTE.

The core group led by the United Kingdom (UK) has revised the draft resolution on Sri Lanka calling for, among others, to implement the recommendations made by the UN Special Rapporteurs who visited Sri Lanka after 2015, Daily Mirror learns.

Sri Lanka has begun negotiations with Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, that produces the Sputnik V vaccine, to finalise a price to purchase the vaccines for the local population as the State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) envisages to purchase at least seven million doses.

The core group of countries working on Sri Lanka’s issue at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will be ready with the final version of the resolution after another session of informal consultations with the states interested in the issue, an official said yesterday.

The Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry yesterday said the invitation extended to the Foreign Minister of Myanmar was to attend the 17th BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting to be hosted virtually on 1 April in Colombo.

The Government yesterday defended its decision to approve Adani Group to develop the West Container Terminal (WCT) conceding that the Indian Government did not specifically nominate the company, but that the selection was based on an “assumption” as the second terminal project was deemed less strategic.

Bloomberg: Faced with low foreign-exchange reserves and looming debt repayments, Sri Lanka is borrowing from the contrarian playbook Malaysia used during the days of the Asian crisis in 1998.

The Bangladesh High Commission in Colombo observed the International Mother Language Day (IMLD) 2021 recently with due solemnity and fervour.

WASHINGTON - The first federal recommendations for people vaccinated against COVID-19 allow cautious steps toward normal life.

Italy's death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 100,000 on Monday, a year after it became the first country in Europe to go into lockdown to try to stop the spread of the virus.