Sri Lanka protests continue despite curfew, heavy troop deployment

Demonstrations came to a head last weekend when hundreds of thousands of people took over government buildings in Colombo, including the prime minister’s official residence, above. (AP)
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Updated 14 July 2022
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Sri Lanka protests continue despite curfew, heavy troop deployment

  • President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled on Wednesday to escape a popular uprising
  • Appointment of PM Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting president triggers more rallies

COLOMBO: Protesters remained on the streets of Colombo on Thursday, despite a curfew and heavy troop deployment, saying they will not stop rallying until Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe quits.

Wickremesinghe was appointed the acting president on Wednesday, hours after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Maldives to escape a popular uprising over the role his family — Sri Lanka’s most influential political dynasty — played in the country’s worst economic meltdown in memory.

Thousands of demonstrators stormed parliament and government buildings over the weekend and continued to occupy them after the president’s escape.

Rajapaksa’s decision to make his ally Wickremesinghe the acting president triggered more protests, prompting the prime minister to declare a state of emergency and impose a curfew in the capital and surrounding areas.

“We will not stop the protests until the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe resigns from his premiership,” Senaka Perera, a prominent lawyer representing protesters, told Arab News.

For months, people have been struggling with daily power cuts and shortages of basic commodities such as fuel, food and medicines, as foreign currency reserves have run out, making Sri Lanka unable to pay for imports. Protests flared up in Colombo in March and have grown since, spreading across the country.

Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister after Rajapaksa’s elder brother, Mahinda, was forced to resign when demonstrations turned deadly in May. A senior opposition lawmaker, he has been prime minister six times, but has never completed his term.

“We were successful in ousting the president and the former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, and now our target is to clear this man from office,” Perera said. “We are all focused on our goals, and we will never move from the site until we achieve them.”

People remained at protest sites despite an army announcement on Thursday that troops would “exercise their force, if the situation deems necessary.”

About 5,000 protesters gathered in the Galle Face Green park in Colombo, as they agreed to abandon government buildings. Perera said the number was expected to grow to 20,000 over the weekend.

Sri Lanka’s parliament is expected to name a new full-time president on July 20, if Rajapaksa files his official resignation letter.

The main opposition alliance, Samagi Jana Balawegaya, has nominated its leader Sajith Premadasa for the post.

Premadasa is the son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who served as the country’s president from 1989 to 1993. He contested the presidential election in 2019, but lost to Rajapaksa.


Authorities say suspect in California fertility clinic bombing left behind ‘anti-pro-life’ writings

Updated 5 sec ago
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Authorities say suspect in California fertility clinic bombing left behind ‘anti-pro-life’ writings

  • US Attorney Bilal “Bill” Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in the area, called the writings “anti-pro-life”

A 25-year-old man the FBI believes was responsible for an explosion that ripped through a Southern California fertility clinic left behind “anti-pro-life” writings before carrying out an attack investigators are calling an act of terrorism, authorities said Sunday.
Guy Edward Bartkus of Twentynine Palms, California, was identified by the FBI as the suspect in the apparent car bomb detonation Saturday that damaged the clinic in the upscale city of Palm Springs in the desert east of Los Angeles.
Investigators believe Barktus died in the blast, which a senior FBI official called possibly the “largest bombing scene that we’ve had in Southern California.” A body was found near a charred vehicle outside the clinic.
Bartkus attempted to livestream the explosion and left behind writings that communicated “nihilistic ideations” that were still being examined to determine his state of mind, said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. US Attorney Bilal “Bill” Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in the area, called the writings “anti-pro-life.”
The Associated Press reported Saturday night that those writings professed a sentiment that the world should not be populated.
“This was a targeted attack against the IVF facility,” Davis said Sunday. “Make no mistake: we are treating this, as I said yesterday, as an intentional act of terrorism.”
The bombing injured four other people, though Davis said all embryos at the facility were saved.
“Good guys one, bad guys zero,” he said.
Authorities were executing a search warrant in Twentynine Palms, a city of 28,000 residents about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Palm Springs, as part of the investigation.
The suspect posted writings online and attempted to record the explosion, though authorities said the video failed to upload. An official who was not authorized to discuss details of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity to the AP.
The blast gutted the single-story American Reproductive Centers clinic, though a doctor said its staff members were safe.
“Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients,” Dr. Maher Abdallah, who leads the clinic, told the AP in a phone interview Saturday.


Former US President Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive’ prostate cancer

Updated 21 min 18 sec ago
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Former US President Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive’ prostate cancer

  • Biden, 82, was diagnosed on Friday after having experienced urinary symptoms

Former US President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone, his office said in a statement on Sunday.
Biden, 82, was diagnosed on Friday after having experienced urinary symptoms, and he and his family are reviewing treatment options with doctors, the statement said.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” his office said.
Biden, who served as president from 2021 to 2025, abruptly ended his bid for reelection last July, weeks after a halting performance during a debate against Republican candidate Donald Trump prompted panic among his fellow Democrats. Vice President Kamala Harris took over as the party’s nominee but lost in November to Trump.
Biden’s physical health and mental acuity drew intense media scrutiny even before the debate. At the time of his election, Biden was the oldest person to win the presidency.
Trump, 78, broke that record when he defeated Harris last year.


Anti-immigration minister becomes leader of French conservatives

Updated 51 min 56 sec ago
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Anti-immigration minister becomes leader of French conservatives

  • Bruno Retailleau has become leader of the conservative Republican party (LR), which traces its origins to postwar leader Charles de Gaulle

PARIS: France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who has called for radical action to cut immigration numbers, easily won an election to become leader of the conservative Republican party (LR), according to results released Sunday.
Retailleau won 74 percent of the vote from party members against 25 percent for Laurent Wauquiez, the head of the party in the French national assembly.
Although LR and its allies hold only 60 seats in France’s 577-member national assembly and the party candidate barely registered in the 2022 presidential vote, experts predict a better run in 2027 when President Emmanuel Macron must step down.
The LR’s last leader Eric Ciotti quit the party last year after calling for an alliance with the far-right National Rally (RN). The LR has wrangled since over its stance but has adopted a tougher line on issues such as immigration.
National opinion polls currently suggest the RN would perform well in the 2027 election, which has however been shaken by legal woes for its figurehead Marine Le Pen.
Retailleau, in his government post since last year, has emerged as one of the most high-profile ministers in the centrist-led coalition government. He said he would stay in the government but he is likely to use his victory to press his case for the presidency.
“Our political family is now able to carry our project forward for the presidential election,” Retailleau told broadcaster TF1 after the results were announced.
The LR is the successor of the UMP, which traces its origins to postwar leader Charles de Gaulle and was the party of former presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Some 80 percent of the 120,000 LR party members took part in the weekend vote for the leader. The LR membership had increased from 43,859 to 121,617 in the two months before the leadership election.


British climber breaks his own record with 19th Everest summit

Updated 18 May 2025
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British climber breaks his own record with 19th Everest summit

  • More than 50 climbers have reached the summit since the spring climbing season began this month

KATHMANDU: British climber Kenton Cool successfully climbed Mount Everest for the nineteenth time on Sunday, extending his own record for the most summits of the world’s highest mountain by a non-Nepali.

More than 50 climbers have reached the summit since the spring climbing season began this month, taking advantage of a brief spell of good weather and typically calmer winds.

Mountain guide Cool, 51, first climbed Everest in 2004 and has since had an expedition almost every year taking clients up the world’s highest peak.

“Kenton summited Everest for the 19th time at 11:00 a.m. Nepalese time on Sunday,” a post on his Instagram account said.

His 15th summit in 2021 tied him with American Dave Hahn for the most summits by a non-Nepali climber, and his summit the following year gave him a solo title.

Cool was once told he would not walk unaided again after a rock-climbing accident in 1996 that broke both his heel bones.

He told AFP in a 2022 interview after his 16th ascent that his Everest record was “not that amazing” in the context of Nepali climbers’ achievements.

“I’m really surprised by the interest ... considering that so many of the Sherpas have so many more ascents,” he said then.

Nepali climber Kami Rita Sherpa, 55, is also attempting to break his own world record for the most Everest summits with his 31st climb.


Gaza a ‘slaughterhouse,’ says British surgeon

Updated 18 May 2025
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Gaza a ‘slaughterhouse,’ says British surgeon

  • Dr. Tom Potokar: ‘It’s difficult to describe in words what’s happening here’
  • ‘Absolutely horrific’ stories amid escalating Israeli attacks

LONDON: A British surgeon working in southern Gaza has described treating severe explosive injuries and compared the Palestinian enclave to a “slaughterhouse” amid escalating Israeli attacks.

Overnight, at least 130 people were reported killed as Israeli forces launched extensive ground operations in the northern and southern Gaza Strip, forcing the closure of some of its main medical facilities.

Dr. Tom Potokar said in a video that medical staff were treating severe explosive injuries in southern Gaza.

“It’s difficult to describe in words what’s happening here (with the) constant sound of bombardment, jets overhead,” he added.

Following the Hamas attack in October 2023 that killed nearly 1,200 people, Israeli forces launched an air, ground and sea campaign on Gaza, killing over 52,000 Palestinians and displacing and injuring hundreds of thousands.

Potokar said he treated a young woman who “is not yet aware that everyone in (her) family was killed in the onslaught.”

He added: “Another day of devastation here in Gaza ... The stories coming from the north ... absolutely horrific ... particularly around the Indonesian Hospital.”

The hospital, one of the largest partially functioning medical facilities in Beit Lahia, has ceased operations due to Israeli bombing.

In the south, the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Yunis announced that it was out of service last week, while the Kuwait Specialized Hospital in Rafah said it can no longer operate its surgical department amid the Israeli attacks.

Since March, Israel has enforced a blockade on aid, prompting a warning from UN food experts about the imminent risk of mass starvation in Gaza.