- US imposes new sanctions aimed at choking off Russia’s access to battlefield supplies and revenue Yahoo News
- Russia-Ukraine war: US imposes new Russian sanctions Al Jazeera English
- New US sanctions target Russian access to battlefield supplies -Treasury Reuters
- Imposing Additional Sanctions on Those Supporting Russia’s War Against Ukraine – United States Department of State Department of State
- Australia Sanctions More Russian Entities, Individuals In Response To Ukraine Invasion Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
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US imposes visa restrictions for some Ugandans following adoption of anti-gay law – The Associated Press
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- Visa Restrictions for Undermining the Democratic Process in Uganda – United States Department of State Department of State
- US restricts Ugandan officials travel in wake of anti-LGBTQ law Al Jazeera English
- Elizabeth Shackelford: Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ law creates problem for the US Chicago Tribune
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EU imposes new Iran sanctions, won’t brand Guards ‘terrorists’ for now
BRUSSELS, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on more than 30 Iranian officials and organisations, including units of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, blaming them for a “brutal” crackdown on protesters and other human rights abuses.
The United States and Britain have also issued new sanctions against Iran, reflecting a deterioration in the West’s already dire relations with Tehran in recent months.
Foreign ministers from the EU’s 27 member countries agreed the measures at a meeting in Brussels.
The sanctions targeted units and senior officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) across Iran, including in Sunni-populated areas where the state crackdown has been intense, a list published in the EU’s Official Journal showed.
Some EU governments and the European Parliament have made clear they want the IRGC as a whole added to the bloc’s list of terrorist organisations. But the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, noted that could only happen if a court in an EU country determined the IRGC was guilty of terrorism.
“You cannot say ‘I consider you a terrorist because I don’t like you’,” he told reporters ahead of the Brussels talks.
The new sanctions were imposed on 18 people and 19 entities. Those targeted cannot travel to the EU and any assets they hold inside the EU can be frozen.
Relations between the EU and Tehran have spiralled downwards during stalled efforts to revive talks on its nuclear programme and as Iran has moved to detain several European nationals.
The bloc has also become increasingly critical of the continuing violent treatment of protesters in Iran, including executions, and the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia.
Sweden, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the new sanctions targeted “those driving the repression.”
“The EU strongly condemns the brutal and disproportionate use of force by the Iranian authorities against peaceful protesters,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said in a Twitter post by the country’s EU diplomatic mission.
The IRGC was set up shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shi’ite clerical ruling system. It has an estimated 125,000-strong military with army, navy and air units, and commands the Basij religious militia often used in crackdowns.
“The Iranian regime, the Revolutionary Guards terrorise their own population day after day,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Monday’s meeting.
The day before the Brussels meeting, over a thousand people took to the streets of the city to protest against the detention in Iran of Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele.
Iran earlier warned the EU against designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity.
Reporting by Andrew Gray, Bart Meijer Philip Blenkinsop and Parisa Hafezi, Writing by Ingrid Melander and Gabriela Baczynska, Editing by Peter Graff, Timothy Heritage and John Stonestreet
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China imposes transit curbs for S.Korea, Japan in growing COVID spat
BEIJING, Jan 11 (Reuters) – China introduced transit curbs for South Korean and Japanese nationals on Wednesday, in an escalating diplomatic spat over COVID-19 curbs that is marring the grand re-opening of the world’s second-largest economy after three years of isolation.
China removed quarantine mandates for inbound travellers on Sunday, one of the last vestiges of the world’s strictest regime of COVID restrictions, which Beijing abruptly began dismantling in early December after historic protests.
But worries over the scale and impact of the outbreak in China, where the virus is spreading unchecked, have prompted more than a dozen countries to demand negative COVID test results from people arriving from China.
Among them, South Korea and Japan have also limited flights and require tests on arrival, with passengers showing up as positive being sent to quarantine. In South Korea, quarantine is at the traveller’s own cost.
In response, the Chinese embassies in Seoul and Tokyo said on Tuesday they had suspended issuing short-term visas for travellers to China, with the foreign ministry slamming the testing requirements as “discriminatory.”
That prompted an official protest from Japan to China, while South Korean foreign minister Park Jin said that Seoul’s decision was based on scientific evidence, not discriminatory and that China’s countermeasures were “deeply regrettable.”
In a sign of escalating tensions on Wednesday, China’s immigration authority suspended its transit visa exemptions for South Koreans and Japanese.
The spat may affect economic relations between the three neighbours as well.
Japanese department store operator Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd (3099.T) and supermarket operator Aeon Co (8267.T) said they may have to rethink personnel transfers to China depending on how long the suspension lasts.
“We won’t be able to make short-term business trips, but such trips had dwindled during COVID anyway, so we don’t expect an immediate impact. But if the situation lasts long, there will be an effect,” said a South Korean chip industry source who declined to be identified, as the person was not authorised to speak to media.
China requires negative test results from visitors from all countries.
COUNTING DEATHS
Some of the governments that announced curbs on travellers from China cited concerns over Beijing’s data transparency.
The World Health Organization has said China was underreporting deaths.
China’s health authorities have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers that are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes. In a first, they did not report COVID fatalities data on Tuesday.
China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Health Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Without mentioning whether daily reporting had been discontinued, Liang Wannian, head of a COVID expert panel under the national health authority, told reporters deaths can only be accurately counted after the pandemic is over.
China should ultimately determine death figures by looking at excess mortality, Wang Guiqiang, the head of the infectious diseases department at Peking University First Hospital said at the same news conference.
Although international health experts have predicted at least one million COVID-related deaths this year, China has reported just over 5,000 since the pandemic began, a fraction of what other countries have reported as they reopened.
China says it has been transparent with its data.
State media said the COVID wave was already past its peak in the provinces of Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Sichuan and Hainan, as well as in the large cities of Beijing and Chongqing – home to more than 500 million people combined.
‘INSULTING’
On Wednesday, Chinese state media devoted extensive coverage of what they called as “discriminatory” border rules in South Korea and Japan.
Nationalist tabloid Global Times defended Beijing’s retaliation as a “direct and reasonable response to protect its own legitimate interests, particularly after some countries are continuing hyping up China’s epidemic situation by putting travel restrictions for political manipulation.”
Chinese social media anger mainly targeted South Korea, whose border measures are the strictest among the countries that announced new rules.
Videos circulating online showed special lanes coordinated by soldiers in uniform for arrivals from China at the airport, with travellers given yellow lanyards with QR codes for processing test results.
One user of China’s Twitter-like Weibo said singling out Chinese travellers was “insulting” and akin to “people treated as criminals and paraded on the streets.”
Annual spending by Chinese tourists abroad reached $250 billion before the pandemic, with South Korea and Japan among the top shopping destinations.
Repeated lockdowns have hammered China’s $17 trillion economy. The World Bank estimated its 2022 growth slumped to 2.7%, its second-slowest pace since the mid-1970s after 2020.
It predicted a rebound to 4.3% for 2023, but that is 0.9 percentage points below its June forecast because of the severity of COVID disruptions and weakening external demand.
($1 = 6.7666 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Kaori Kaneko, Mari Shiraki and Elaine Lies in Tokyo; Joyce Lee, Hyunsu Yim and Heekyong Yang in Seoul
Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Kim Coghill
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Exclusive: U.S. imposes sanctions on Turkish businessman, citing links to Iran’s Quds Force
WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on prominent Turkish businessman Sitki Ayan and his network of companies, accusing him of acting as a facilitator for oil sales and money laundering on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ayan’s companies have established international sales contracts for Iranian oil, arranged shipments and helped launder the proceeds and obscured the origin of the Iranian oil on behalf of Iran’s Quds Force, an arm of the IRGC, the Treasury said in a statement first reported by Reuters.
“Ayan has established business contracts to sell Iranian oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars to buyers,” in China, the United Arab Emirates and Europe, the statement says, adding that he then funneled the proceeds back to the Quds Force.
Ayan’s son Bahaddin Ayan, his associate Kasim Oztas and two other Turkish citizens involved in his business network are also designated, along with 26 companies including his ASB Group of Companies, a Gibraltar-based holding company and a vessel.
Ayan, the son Bahaddin and Oztas were not immediately available for comment. Ayan’s ASB Group and Turkey’s Directorate of Communications did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Treasury action freezes any U.S. assets of those designated and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Those that engage in certain transactions with those designated also risk sanctions.
The U.S. measures come at a time when ties between the United States and Turkey are strained over a host of issues, including disagreement over Syria policy and Ankara’s purchase of Russian air defense systems.
Most recently, Washington has warned Turkey to refrain from carrying out a military incursion into northern Syria after Ankara said it was preparing a possible ground invasion against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia that it views as terrorists but who make up the bulk of U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Washington maintains sweeping sanctions on Iran and has looked for ways to increase pressure as efforts to resurrect a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran have stalled.
U.S. President Joe Biden had sought to negotiate the return of Iran to the nuclear deal after former President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018.
The 2015 agreement limited Iran’s uranium enrichment activity to make it harder for Tehran to develop nuclear arms in return for lifting international sanctions. Iran denies wanting to acquire nuclear weapons.
Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Daphne Psaledakis; Additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Don Durfee and Howard Goller
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
China imposes new lockdowns as local Covid cases hit record high | China
China has imposed a fresh series of Covid lockdowns, including in a city where workers at the world’s largest iPhone factory clashed with police this week, as a record daily high in coronavirus cases tests its commitment to follow the rest of the world in easing pandemic restrictions.
The national health commission reported 31,444 new locally transmitted Covid cases on Wednesday, the highest daily figure since the coronavirus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late in 2019.
The government responded by tightening Covid restrictions in cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and ordering mass testing.
In Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, where there were clashes on Tuesday and Wednesday between police and protesting workers from Foxconn’s iPhone factory, authorities announced a five-day lockdown for approximately 6 million people. Residents were ordered to stay at home and carry out daily PCR tests in a “war of annihilation” against the virus.
One worker told the AFP news agency that the protests had begun over a dispute about promised bonuses at the Foxconn factory and “chaotic” living conditions.
Foxconn, the Taiwan-based owner of the factory, which employs about 200,000 people in Zhengzhou, has been desperate to keep operations going after a handful of Covid cases forced it to lock down the facility, and it recruited new workers from across the country on favourable packages to replace the thousands who last month walked away. Employees said protests started after the company changed the terms of their pay.
Videos online showed thousands of people in masks facing rows of police in white protective suits with plastic riot shields. Police kicked and hit one protester with clubs after he grabbed a metal pole that had been used to strike him.
Many employees accepted payoffs from the company and went home on Thursday. Some said on social media that they had received bonuses of 10,000 yuan (£1,150) in return for terminating their contracts.
Foxconn apologised on Thursday for what it called “an input error in the computer system” and said it would guarantee that the pay was the same as was promised in official recruitment posters. “As for the violent incident, the company would continue to communicate with the staff and government to prevent similar incidents from happening again,” a company statement said.
The strict enforcement of China’s “dynamic zero Covid” policy for almost three years has weighed on its economy and stoked frustration among the population.
On 11 November, the government announced it would shorten quarantines and ease other restrictions, a move seen to be aimed at alleviating economic pressures and cooling public discontent. But at the same time, senior officials warned cadres not to let down their guard.
Among the new measures, Guangzhou imposed a five-day lockdown in the Baiyun district from Monday to curb the surge in cases. Residents are required to stay at home and public transport has been suspended, although areas that have not reported infections for three consecutive days could lift restrictions.
The government of the north-eastern city of Changchun, in Jilin province, urged its residents to halt non-essential movement and avoid going to public places, restaurants and public gatherings.
Shanghai tightened restrictions for arrivals to the city. A notice on the city’s official WeChat account said people travelling to the city from Thursday would be tested for Covid and barred from going to restaurants and shopping centres, among other public venues, for five days after their arrival.
Beijing has imposed new testing requirements for incoming travellers and residents. It requires a negative PCR test result within 48 hours for those seeking to enter public places such as shopping malls, hotels and government buildings. Schools across the city have moved to online classes.
Although the case numbers are relatively low compared with global figures, even small outbreaks in China often lead to lockdowns of districts and cities. Authorities this week reported China’s first Covid deaths in six months, bringing the total to 5,232.
A Zhengzhou resident who was among those scrambling to buy food in a market before the lockdown said on the social media platform Sina Weibo: “All the stalls were full of people and the prices have rocketed … no one was smiling.”
While China’s borders remain largely closed, the government has drawn up measures to facilitate the exit and entry process for foreign business executives, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters.
Sony imposes “restrictions” on Call of Duty’s ability to be in Game Pass, Xbox claims
Sony’s current Call of Duty marketing deal “restricts” Activision’s big-budget shooter series from appearing in Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft has claimed.
The detail comes from Xbox’s full response to last week’s filing by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, in which the regulator raised its current concerns regarding Microsoft’s ongoing $68bn takeover attempt of Activision Blizzard.
Sony’s existing marketing deal with Call of Duty sees the PlayStation branding used in conjunction with advertising, while players on Sony platforms get early access to in-game content.
In Microsoft’s response, in a footnote to the main text, the Xbox maker references Phil Spencer’s January 20th 2022 tweet which stated that Microsoft’s intent was “to honour all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard”.
Microsoft here goes on to state that the current agreement with Activision Blizzard and Sony “includes restrictions on the ability of Activision Blizzard to place Call of Duty titles on Game Pass for a number of years”.
What we don’t know is the nature of these “restrictions”, and whether they amount to a full block of a Call of Duty game’s launch on Game Pass, or whether doing so would come at some kind of penalty to Activision Blizzard – such as compensation for users claiming or downloading copies, which it would then pass on to Sony.
We also do not know how long these restrictions might last – it’s not explicitly said they will continue on past the current end of the deal, which will last for another couple of Call of Duty games yet, or whether existing games will remain unable to join Xbox Game Pass for some additional time in the future.
Clearly, though, Microsoft has decided to include this detail to highlight what it sees as the possibility for COD’s future potential inclusion in Game Pass to be a sticking point to the CMA’s approval of the takeover bid. One suggestion here is that Microsoft may not be able to place COD games in Game Pass even if it wanted to. It also could be seen to suggest Sony was already exerting the kind of control over which games go into subscriptions that Microsoft has been accused of having itself.
All of this also furthers the ongoing debates about competition in this space which also may impact the deal’s passing. On the one hand, the CMA is concerned with Microsoft’s acquisition giving it an unfair advantage in the console market. On the other, Microsoft has countered to say its deal will give players more choice, and that its competition with Sony has driven its rival to adopt its own subscription service.
Regulatory inspection of Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard takeover is surfacing some interesting details – such as the fact Game Pass earned $2.9bn last financial year. In another particularly eye-opening claim, Microsoft last week said that PlayStation’s userbase would be “significantly larger” than Xbox even if every COD player ditched Sony.
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North Korea fires missile, flies warplanes near border as South imposes sanctions
SEOUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) – North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast on Friday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of launches by the nuclear-armed country amid heightened tensions.
South Korea also scrambled fighter jets when a group of about 10 North Korean military aircraft flew close to their heavily fortified border, and North Korea fired some 170 rounds of artillery into “sea buffer zones” off its east and west coasts, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) condemned the North for escalating tensions, calling its moves a violation of a 2018 bilateral military pact that bans “hostile acts” in the border area.
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Seoul imposed its first unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang in nearly five years, blacklisting 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions involved in missile development.
The JCS issued a warning to North Korea, urging it to stop provocations and escalating tension.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told reporters that Pyongyang has been “indiscriminately carrying out provocations,” vowing to devise “watertight countermeasures.”
Yoon’s spokesman said that his government respects inter-Korean agreements, and that scrapping the 2018 military pact hinges on Pyongyang’s behaviour.
North Korea’s military issued a statement via state media KCNA early on Friday saying that it took “strong military countermeasures,” over South Korea’s artillery fire on Thursday.
South Korea’s NSC said the firing was a “regular, legitimate” exercise.
The incidents came after KCNA said leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch of two long-range strategic cruise missiles on Wednesday to confirm the reliability of nuclear-capable weapons deployed to military units.
The unprecedented frequency of North Korea’s missile launches has raised concerns it may be preparing to resume testing of nuclear bombs for the first time since 2017. Some analysts do not expect any tests before neighbouring China concludes a key ruling Communist Party congress, which begins on Oct. 16.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said it was aware of the latest missile launch and “it does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies.”
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the North’s repeated missiles tests were “absolutely unacceptable,” and his country would “drastically strengthen” its defence.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said all parties should refrain from escalating tension and resume meaningful dialogue for a political solution.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un attends the opening ceremony of the Ryonpho Greenhouse Farm to mark the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party, in North Korea, in this undated photo released on October 11, 2022 by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
FLARING TENSION
South Korea’s JCS said the latest missile was launched at 1:49 a.m. on Friday (1449 Thursday GMT) from the Sunan area near North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, and flew about 700 km (435 miles) to an altitude of 50 km at a speed of Mach 6.
Japan’s coast guard also reported the launch, which was at least the 41st ballistic missile test by the North this year.
The JCS said the aircraft incident occurred for about two hours from 8:30 p.m. on Thursday (1130 GMT), during which about 10 North Korean warplanes flew as close as 12 km (7 miles) north of the sea border and 25 km (15 miles) north of the Military Demarcation Line.
It said the South Korean air force “conducted an emergency sortie with its superior air force, including the F-35A” and a proportional response manoeuvre.
South Korea’s military will hold its annual Hoguk defence drills starting next week, including field training simulated to counter the North’s nuclear and missile threats, it added.
In its latest sanctions, Seoul’s finance and foreign ministries singled out four officials at the North’s military think tank, and 11 at a trading company.
The 16 entities blacklisted include rocket industry and naval transport agencies, as well as trading, construction and electronic firms.
They aided the North’s weapons programmes and helped evade international sanctions by conducting research or supplying finance and materials through overseas workers, smuggling and ship operations, the ministries said.
The General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) accused the South of taking “provocative action” with the artillery fire, which lasted about 10 hours.
“The KPA sends a stern warning to the South Korean military inciting military tension in the frontline area with reckless action,” its spokesman said, according to KCNA.
The flaring tension revived fears in South Korea of a potential provocation by the North.
Although there were no signs of panic among South Koreans, a Gallup poll released on Friday showed more than 70% of respondents said North Korea’s missile tests threatened peace, the highest since the North’s sixth nuclear test in 2017.
North Korea has called its most recent series of missile tests, including an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over Japan last week, a show of force against South Korean and U.S. military drills involving an aircraft carrier.
Washington imposed new sanctions last week targeting a fuel procurement network supporting Pyongyang’s weapons programmes.
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Reporting by Josh Smith and Hyonhee in Seoul and David Brunnstrom in Washington; additional reporting by Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo and Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Grant McCool, Lincoln Feast, Gerry Doyle and Kim Coghill
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EU imposes sanctions on Russian oil boss linked to seized superyachts | Russia
The European Union has imposed sanctions on a Russian oil boss who is separately alleged by the US authorities to be acting as a “straw owner” of two yachts linked to Vladimir Putin and his inner circle.
Eduard Khudainatov served as chairman and chief executive of the state-controlled oil company Rosneft before setting up his own energy business, Independent Oil and Gas Company, which has grown rapidly to become one of Russia’s top oil producers with interests in extraction, refining and trading.
The EU said the 61-year-old businessman was associated with Putin, whose first presidential campaign he helped to organise in 2000, and his close ally Igor Sechin, who succeeded Khudainatov at the head of Rosneft. It said he had been blacklisted for “benefiting from the government of the Russian Federation” and being “associated with listed persons”. Sechin and Putin have been under EU sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine.
Khudainatov has kept a low profile compared with Russian oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich. However, since the invasion he has come to international attention after being named in a court case as the owner of two luxury vessels – the $325m (£260m) Amadea and the $700m Scheherazade. The European sanctions listing did not reference Khudainatov’s alleged ownership of the superyachts.
The Amadea is the subject of a legal battle in Fiji, where it was seized on 19 April at the request of the US government, which claims it belongs to the sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.
A trail of offshore companies and trusts reportedly links Khudainatov to the Amadea and to the Scheherazade, which is alleged to have been used by Putin. Lawyers acting for the British Virgin Islands company that owns the Amadea have told the court the legal owner is Khudainatov.
However, according to court filings seen by US media, the American government has dismissed Khudainatov as a “straw owner” who it says is standing in for the real owners of both vessels. Fiji’s supreme court is set to rule on the case on 7 June.
The Scheherazade, which has six decks and two helipads, was seized by the Italian government in May. It had been undergoing repairs in the port of Marina di Carrara, and police swooped amid concerns it was about to set sail. In a statement announcing the seizure order, the Italian finance ministry did not name the owner, saying only that he had ties to “prominent elements of the Russian government”.
The organisation set up by the imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny released a report in March saying it had evidence that the Scheherazade belonged to Putin.
Both yachts were reportedly managed and crewed by the Monaco-based specialist Imperial Yachts. The company was named in US sanctions on Thursday night along with its owner, Evgeniy Kochman.
The US treasury department said Kochman’s company “provides yacht-related services to Russia’s elites, including those in President Putin’s inner circle”. It identified four yachts “favoured by Putin” – the Nega, the Graceful, the Olympia and the Shellest – that the Russian leader had “taken numerous trips on”, including as recently as last year. The Scheherazade was not named in the statement.
Khudainatov’s oil business has acquired significant stakes in companies involved in the energy sector, together with their extraction licences, from the state-owned Rosneft, according to the EU sanctions listing. In the last few years Rosneft has paid $9.6bn to Khudainatov in exchange for a company that owns an oilfield in Taymyr, it said.
It was not possible to reach Khudainatov for comment.
Sri Lanka imposes curfew after president declares state of emergency
COLOMBO, April 2 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s government imposed a weekend curfew on Saturday, even as hundreds of lawyers urged President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to revoke a state of emergency introduced following unrest over fuel and other shortages in a deep economic crisis.
The government’s information department said a countrywide curfew would run from 6 p.m. (1230 GMT) on Saturday to 6 a.m. (0030 GMT) on Monday.
Rajapaksa introduced a state of emergency on Friday, raising fears of a crackdown on protests. Emergency powers in the past have allowed the military to arrest and detain suspects without warrants, but the terms of the current powers are not yet clear.
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The Indian Ocean island nation of 22 million people is grappling with rolling blackouts for up to 13 hours a day as the government scrambles to secure foreign exchange to pay for fuel and other essential imports. read more .
“People take to the streets when things are impossible,” 68-year-old Colombo shop owner Nishan Ariyapala told Reuters TV. “When people take to the streets the political leaders of the country must act thoughtfully.”
Rajapaksa said the state of emergency was needed to protect public order and maintain essential supplies and services.
Angered by the shortages of fuel and other essential items, hundreds of protesters clashed on Thursday with police and the military outside Rajapaksa’s residence as they called for his ouster and torched several police and army vehicles.
Police arrested 53 people and imposed a curfew in and around Colombo on Friday to contain other sporadic protests.
Shops opened and traffic was normal on Saturday, while police remained stationed at some petrol stations.
‘FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND’
“There has been a failure to understand the aspirations of the people and to empathize with the suffering of the people of the country,” the lawyers, members of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, said in their appeal, adding that freedom of speech and peaceful assembly should be respected.
Reacting to the state of emergency, U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung said: “Sri Lankans have a right to protest peacefully – essential for democratic expression.
“I am watching the situation closely, and hope the coming days bring restraint from all sides, as well as much needed economic stability and relief for those suffering,” she tweeted.
Highlighting the severe shortage of foreign currency, a vessel carrying 5,500 metric tonnes of cooking gas had to leave Sri Lankan waters after Laugfs Gas (LGGL.CM), the company that ordered it, could not procure $4.9 million from local banks to pay for it.
“People are struggling with an acute shortage of cooking gas, but how can we help them when there are no dollars? We are stuck,” Laugfs Gas Chairman W.H.K. Wegapitiya told Reuters.
The ongoing crisis – the result of economic mismanagement by successive governments – has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit tourism and remittances.
It has also marked a sharp turnaround in political support for Rajapaksa, who swept to power in 2019 promising stability.
The government has said it is seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and loans from India and China.
In the first major food aid to the country since Colombo secured a credit line from New Delhi, Indian traders have started loading 40,000 tonnes of rice. read more
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Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe Writing by Rupam Jain
Editing by William Mallard and Mark Potter
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