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Sri Lanka court orders arrest of military chief

Agencies
November 3, 2018

Colombo, Nov 3: A Sri Lankan court on Friday ordered the arrest of the country’s top military officer over the abduction and murder of 11 people during the Tamil civil war.

Colombo Fort magistrate Ranga Dissanayake reprimanded police investigators for failing to act on a previous order to detain Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne.

“The court ordered that the Admiral be arrested before November 9,” a court official said. “If they fail, there should be action against the police officer handling the case.”

Bitter power struggle

The order came amid a bitter power struggle between sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former President Mahinda Rajapakse, who was named to replace him.

Mr. Rajapakse was head of state from 2005 to 2015 when the decades-old Tamil separatist war was brutally crushed — although the timing of today’s ruling appeared to have no deliberate link with the current political crisis.

The magistrate wants police to arrest Mr. Wijegunaratne for allegedly shielding a Navy officer responsible for abductions and killings.

Police told the court that the Admiral had protected Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi, a Navy intelligence officer who is the main suspect in the killing of 11 men between 2008 and 2009.

They are believed to have been murdered while being illegally held by the Navy. Their bodies were never found but Hettiarachchi was arrested in August.

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News Network
April 28,2020

Geneva, Apr 28: The global death toll from the novel coronavirus has increased over the past 24 hours by nearly 5,000 to top 198,000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

According to the latest WHO data, 85,530 new cases of infection have been registered globally over the past day, with 4,982 deaths.

The overall number of COVID-19 cases worldwide increased to 2,878,196 and the death count reached 198,668.

There are 1,359,380 confirmed cases and 124,525 deaths in Europe.

The number of cases in the Americas total 1,140,520, with 58,492 deaths.

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Agencies
April 2,2020
Thailand's controversial king has created a category of his own with his idea of self-isolation.
 
According to reports, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama X, has hired out an entire luxury hotel in Germany, where he has been 'self-isolating' with 20 women.
 
The luxury hotel, the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl, is in the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
 
The 67-year-old king is self-isolating with his entourage that includes a 'harem' of 20 concubines and several servants, reported Bild.
 
However, it is unclear if his four wives are currently living in the same hotel.

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News Network
June 3,2020

Islamabad, Jun 3: Pakistan has reported a record 4,132 fresh cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections to 80,463, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The Ministry of National Health and Services said the new infections were detected after conducting a maximum of 17,370 tests in a day.

Of the total cases, Sindh has so far detected 31,086 patients of the coronavirus, Punjab 29,489, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 10,897, Balochistan 4,747, Islamabad 3,188, Gilgit-Baltistan 779 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir reported 289 patients of the viral disease.

"In total 67 patients died in the last 24 hours, taking the tally of deaths to 1,688. Another 28,923 people have fully recovered from the disease," the ministry said in a statement.

The authorities have so far carried out 595,344 tests in the country.

Officials said that Pakistan has more than 100 labs that can conduct over 30,000 tests per day and the number of daily tests will be gradually increased to the maximum level.

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