WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 16 March 2020 16 March 2020 Good afternoon everyone. In the past week, we have seen a rapid escalation of cases of COVID-19. More cases and deaths have now been reported in the rest of the world than in China. We have also seen […]
As of 7th March 2020, the global number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 has surpassed 100 000. As we mark this sombre moment, the World Health Organization (WHO) reminds all countries and communities that the spread of this virus can be significantly slowed or even reversed through the implementation of robust containment and control activities. […]
There is a dreadfully fractured logic in what the Government of Sri Lanka articulated before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) as it withdrew from UNHRC Resolution 30/1 this week. This is playing to the nationalist gallery with an eye to the impending General Elections. It has disastrous consequences for the country, make no […]
Image: The 19th Amendment had nothing to do with the removal of an IGP. The escalating clash of words (hopefully, not arms) between the Attorney General (AG) and the acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) over the failure to ‘immediately’ file charges against an interdicted High Court judge on the basis of allegedly attempting to […]
Image: File photo of beautiful Austrian countryside © Sunanda Deshapriya. ‘Come for Christmas, this invitation is in my heart’, Oma said on a day when I was wondering how to spend the December holidays. It was her grandson who explained to me to get off at the small railway station where she lives, climb the stairs, […]
Sri Lanka Brief. - Post Presidential Election Update No 03/16 December 2019. Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa presented a cabinet paper in the first week of December for the establishment of a Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry (SPCOI), under the SPCOI Law (1978) to investigate government officials who had conducted ‘witch hunts’ […]
Image: Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's newly elected president, center, greeting supporters after his swearing-in ceremony in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, this month.Credit...Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press. A Swiss Embassy employee is abducted and asked about asylum applications an.d investigators are banned from leaving just days after Gotabaya Rajapaksa is elected. By Maria Abi-Habib and Sameer Yasir. Fears of a potential crackdown on […]
Image: Tetrasoft employees (India) holding placards to create awareness for COVID-19 .(siasat.com) Sri Lankans have lived through countless crises. Civil wars, insurgencies, constitutional coups droughts and famines are but a few examples. Yet, even for the most seasoned among us, these are testing times. The entire nation – now in lockdown – is anxious. We […]
Image courtesy of www.reddeeradvocate.com. The corona pandemic is spreading like wildfire. Its economic consequences are severe, increasing and unpredictable. It is worse than a recession. It is a global economic shutdown and will impact severely on the Sri Lankan economy. It has spread to more than 170 countries with over 270,000 persons tested positive. Its […]
Image courtesy of Euro news. “Epidemic diseases are not random events that affect societies capriciously and without warning. On the contrary, every society produces its specific vulnerabilities. To study them is to understand that society’s structure, its standard of living and its political priorities.” Frank M Snowdon (Epidemics and Society – from the Black Death […]
Image: On 20th March 2020 the last train before the weekend curfew leaves for Kandy. First 50 infected faster than US, Italy and South Korea Targeted hotspots locked down In my view Sri Lanka has never been as challenged, be it in war time with the LTTE, the Easter attack or the devastating tsunami, as […]
By Nicholas LePan The History of Pandemics Pan·dem·ic /panˈdemik/ (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world. As humans have spread across the world, so have infectious diseases. Even in this modern era, outbreaks are nearly constant, though not every outbreak reaches pandemic level as the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has. Today’s visualization […]
